Children's Language: Volume 11: Interactional Contributions To Language Development (Children's Language)

Children's Language Interactional Contributions to Language Development

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Children's Lfhguage

Interactional Contributions to Language Development

Edited by KEITH E. NELSON

Pennsylvania State University, University Park AYHAN AKSU-KOg

Bogazi$i University, Istanbul, Turkey CAROLYN E. J O H N S O N

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2OO1

Mahwah, New Jersey

London

The final camera copy for this work was prepared by the editors and therefore the publisher takes no responsibility for consistency or correctness of typographical style. However, this arrangement helps to make publication of this kind of scholarship possible. Copyright © 2001 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN : 0-8058-3293-9 ISSN: 0163-2809 Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Contributors VII

Preface IX

Introduction AYHAN AKSU-KOC, KEITH E. NELSON, AND CAROLYN E. J O H N S O N

XI

1.

Acquisition of Complex Sentences in Spanish and Catalan Speaking Children M E L I N A A P A R I C I , E LI S A B E T S E R RAT,

M O NTS E R RAT C A R D EVI LA,

AND MIQUEL SERRA

1

2.

Bilingual Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes: Ergativity in Basque Versus Accusativity in Spanish MARCARETA ALMCREN AND ANDONI BARRENA

27

3-

Nonagent Subjects in Early Child Language: A Crosslinguistic Comparison NANCY BUDWIC, S A R E N A STEIN, AND CATHERINE O ' B R I E N

49

4- Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives: At the Interface of Linguistic and Cognitive Development ANA T. PE"REZ-LEROUX

69 5.

A Developmental Perspective on Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children C L A U D I N E DAY

95

6. Contrast, the No Blur Principle, and the Acquisition of Zulu SUSAN M. S U Z M A N

123

7-

Perceiving Referring Actions: Latino and Euro-American Infants and Caregivers Comprehending Speech PATRICIA ZUKOW-COLDRINC

139 8.

A Rare Event Transactional Model of Tricky Mix Conditions Contributing to Language Acquisition and Varied Communicative Delays K E I T H E . N E L S O N , J A N E T M. W E L S H , S T E P H E N M. C A M A R A T A , TOMAS TJUS, AND M I K A E L H E I M A N N

16 5

9. Figure-Ground Segregation in Visual and Linguistic Development: A Dynamic Systems Account A N N M A R I E PELTZER-KARPF AND RENATE 197

Author Index 227 Subject Index 235

ZANCL

Contributors

MARCARETA ALMCREN

University of the Basque Country MELINA APARICI

University of Barcelona, Spain ANDONI BARRENA

Universidad de Salamanca, Spain NANCY BUDWIG

Clark University STEPHEN M. CAMARATA

Vanderbilt University MONTSERRAT CAPDEVILA

Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain C L A U D I N E DAY

Universite de Paris 5 MIKAEL HEIMANN

Gothenburg University, Sweden KEITH E. NELSON

The Pennsylvania State University CATHERINE

O'BRIEN

Clark University ANNMARIE PELTZER-KARPF

Karl-Franzens-Universitat Craz, Austria ANA T. P E " R E Z - L E R O U X University of Toronto, Canada

VII

VIII

CONTRIBUTORS

MIQUEL SERRA

University of Barcelona, Spain ELISABET SERRAT

University of Barcelona, Spain SARENA STEIN

Clark University SUSAN M. S U Z M A N

University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa TOMAS TJUS

Gothenburg University, Sweden JANET M. WELSH

Pennsylvania State University RENATE ZANCL

Karl-Franzens-Universitat Craz, Austria PATRICIA ZUKOW-COLDRINC

University of California, Los Angeles

Preface

The chapters in this volume deal with the contributions and complex inter­ actions of perceptual, cognitive, pragmatic, sociocultural, and typological factors in language development. They present data from children aged six months to 12 years, ranging over eight languages. The chapters were developed from 9 of the 276 presentations at the Seventh International Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) in Istanbul, Turkey, in July 1996. That meeting was a broadly international assembly of 3 50 participants from 41 countries, representing more than 30 languages, who are contributing to the development of a scientific tradition in the fields of general linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and intercultural communica­ tion, as they pertain to children's language acquisition. During the Congress, participants shared exciting research projects and exchanged a broad spectrum of viewpoints with honesty, depth, and respect. Our Turkish hosts were out­ standing in their warmth and organization. IASCL continues to invite international applications from all professionals who share an interest in enhancing the understanding of children's acquisition and use of languages. KEITH E. NELSON AYHAN AKSU-KOC CAROLYN E. J O H N S O N

IX

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Introduction A Y H A N AKSU-KCX;

Bogazi$i University KEITH E. N E L S O N

Pennsylvania State University CAROLYN E. J O H N S O N

University of British Columbia

Dwight Bolinger protested the reductionist approach to linguistics that prevailed in the mid 19705, proclaiming that anthropologist Levi-Strauss should be sent back to his wickiup for his too-influential work on kinship terms. Early child language research was characterized by similar reductionism, as investigators attempted to determine just what children were learning and in what order they learned it. It is a sign of the maturity of the field of child language research that current investigators have moved away from this reduc­ tionism, while retaining its useful analytic methodology; they are willing to take more complex approaches to their areas of study, attempting to explain as well as describe the content and timetable of language acquisition. The nine chapters in this volume exemplify this state of the art. Taken singly, but especially together, they provide a picture of a whole child, with emotions as well as perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, and motor abilities, actively and selectively engaging with the environment to learn language (as well as drawing, painting, music, and arithmetic). The picture is a dynamic one in several ways, including the child's selective, active use of input, but also illustrating that different factors emerge as important depending on the current state of the child's knowlege in various domains. The dominant theme of the volume is how the child's socioculturally influenced participation in discourse contributes in specific ways to learning language (with some parallels shown in other domains, such as art). Other themes are the effect of language typology on learning, interactions among different linguistic levels (such as pragmatics, semantics, and syntax, or phono­ logy and morphology), and the interdependence of all language domains and cognition. These themes are played out in enquiries concerning first words, noun morphology, modal verbs, agentive and nonagentive subjects, and complex-sentence syntax. They are explored in a variety of languages, with an emphasis on Romance languages: Spanish (from several countries), French, Catalan, Basque (Euskal), English, German, and Zulu. The three final chapters take a broad view of language development, explicating different but highly compatible theories that predict much about learning xi

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AKSU-KOC, NELSON, AND JOHNSON

any language. In this introduction we describe how each chapter contributes to these themes. C H I L D R E N S L E A R N I N G IN INTERACTIONS AND DISCOURSE

Early studies of input and its effect on language development described charac­ teristics of the input and identified correlations between these characteristics and advances in children's language learning. The chapters in this volume reflect a more recent approach, which is more dynamic and involves refined methods of discourse analysis (cf. Snow, 1994) in relation to specific advances in language. The authors of chapters i, 5, 6, 7, and 9 describe how discourse provides a "scaffold" for children's learning in a variety of domains. This scaffolding function is utilized selectively, depending on the child's prior knowledge and affective factors, and exemplifies a high degree of reciprocity. In addition to this immediate function of discourse, longer term effects of inter­ action and discourse, such as successful bilingual acquisition and culturally guided uses of attention and specific language forms, are identified in chapters 2,3, and 7. In each chapter, the authors identify other factors that interact with discourse, such as cognitive development, language typology, semantics, and emotion. In chapter i, Aparici, Serrat, Capdevila, and Serra, working within a functional-constructive theoretical framework, emphasize the importance of discourse factors in the acquisition of specific complex sentence types. In their study of monolingual and bilingual Spanish- and Catalan-speaking children's acquisition of sentences with coordinate and subordinate clauses between the ages of i;io and 453, the authors identified two developmental stages: an initial one, in which object, coordinate, causal, relative and purpose clauses appeared, and a second stage, in which manner, then temporal, then conditional clauses emerged. Each of these complex structures was at first produced for only a restricted set of verbs. Within the first stage, the authors observed a develop­ mental trend for purpose, coordinate, and causal clauses, from more to less dependency on prior adult utterances; the children first tended to produce these complex clauses as independent units that completed a main clause just spoken by the adult. For example, a child may introduce coordinating y 'and' or pero 'but' in sentence-initial position, continuing the discourse by presuppos­ ing the main clause in the adult's immediately prior utterance. Because the child's utterance leans on the adult utterance, planning and production demands may be reduced for the child. This discourse dependency was not true for relative or object clauses, which are integral to the main clauses in which they occur, or for the later developing clause types. The authors conclude that children use adjacent linguistic support strategically—only when it is feasible and makes their task easier—and propose that a combination of syntactic, se­ mantic, pragmatic, and cognitive factors also contributes to complex-sentence

Introduction

xiii

learning. For example, they discuss the role of structures such as object complements with nonfinite verbs, that may serve as prototypical examplars for rule abstraction. Aparici et al. stress the gradualness of learning and the differ­ ential effects and interactions of the contributing factors, depending on the current developmental state of the child's grammatical system. Suzman (chap. 6), like Aparici et al., describes the immediate effects of discourse interactions on children's learning of linguistic constructions; in this case, the language is Zulu and the linguistic form under inquiry is noun-class gender morphology. Her chapter exemplifies the central theme of this volume by demonstrating how children select input and learning advances across multiple exchanges in interaction. The framework for Suzman's study is Carstairs-McCarthy's (1994) No Blur Principle (an extension to morphology of Clark's, 1987, Principle of Contrast), which requires that one form must uniquely relate to an inflectional meaning to unambiguously identify an inflectional class. Suzman suggests that Zulu children should not have to depend on special learning principles such as No Blur because Zulu's morph­ ology is overt and transparent, and Zulu children start to use such inflections by age 2. However, there are various reasons for the No Blur Principle's utility for Zulu children, who start out with an oversimplified noun class system: They tend to talk about single things (diminishing the need to learn the plural half of noun morphology), neutralize morphophonological contrasts, and over­ generalize some markers while eliminating others. How do the children move from the resulting "blurred" system to adult Zulu? Suzman explains that during the gradual transition, children use agreement morphology more accurately in the context of discourse than in isolated utterances; they attend to contrasts between their own forms and inflected nouns in adjacent adult utterances, using the adult forms as "online" bases for pattern abstraction. Learning possibilities are enhanced in extended exchanges, in which "adult and child effectively construct a morphological paradigm around the topic of conversation" (p. 128). The role of discourse in modeling inflectional morpho­ logy is especially important because agreement is often determined by established discourse topics rather than at the sentence level (Suzman, 1995). As repeated discourse opportunities arise across many occasions, children use "vertical" multiple-utterance and multiple-turn patterns of input to achieve coordinated refinements in noun classes along with refinements in the gender and verb agreements with those noun classes. All of these observations fit poorly with presumed learnability conditions based on adult grammar. However, they are highly compatible with the emphases on dynamic, culturally embedded, child-active social constructive learning processes in the chapters by Aparici et al., Nelson et al., Zukow-Goldring, and Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl. The important results of both Suzman and Aparici et al. (chaps, i and 6) raise the further possibility that multiple-utterance sequences in the preceding adult discourse turn of conversation could be contributing to development.

XIV

AKSU-KO<;F NELSON, A N D J O H N S O N

Chapter 8 by Nelson et al. is relevant in this regard. Perhaps adults are producing in the Suzman dialogues and the Aparici, Serrat, Capdevila, and Serra dialogues some useful contrasting utterance pairs or triplets. These could include a simple short sentence preceded or followed by a longer sentence incorporating one of the complex agreement or clause structures under investigation for the children. In that kind of dialogue the recasting advantages for abstraction and learning (see Nelson et al., chap. 8) would be combined with scaffolding effects for child production of recently emerged noun morphology or complex sentence structures in the child's next turn of the conversation. In any event, there is high relevance of the volume theme of how learning and use of new language structures advances across multiple rounds of interaction. Zukow-Goldring (chap. 7) joins Suzman and Aparici et al. in pointing out the immediate scaffolding effects of adult-child interaction. Her focus is on the earliest months of language acquisition, when infants are just learning to relate speech and events (o;6 to 256). Zukow-Goldring frames her study in terms of "social ecological realism," a theory that combines the social and perceptual bases of knowledge with the interactive work that people do to achieve consensus and understanding. She compares this theory with dynamic systems theory (Pelzer-Karpf & Zangl, chap. 9) and rare event transactional theory (Nelson et al., chap. 8), finding common ground in the crucial role interaction plays in each theory. Zukow-Goldring views interactions between adults and infants as cycles of reciprocal perceiving and acting, "in which the perceiving and acting of the caregiver reflexively informs the perceiving and acting of the infant" (p. 143). These cycles are culturally influenced, in that the adult educates the child's attention in ways that are both culturally appropriate and influenced by language typology. Zukow-Goldring's research included both middle-class Euro-American and working-class California Latino families, allowing her to make typologically relevant comparisons. The Spanish-speaking caregivers gestured more, specifically providing rich gestural indication of manner of movement information (paths, objects, goals); this result at least partly reflects that Spanish is a "verb-framed language," with verbs that express direction but not path, contrasting with English, a "satellite-framed language" which includes manner information (e.g., Spanish bajar 'go down' versus English slide; see Talmy, 1985). Zukow-Goldring found that, for both language groups, when caregivers directed their infants' attention with a series of increasingly "delicately tailored" gestures after an initial misunderstanding, mutual under­ standing was achieved more successfully than when they simply adjusted their verbal messages. Zukow-Goldring also extends these findings to suggest that adaptations of rare event tricky mix theorizing (Nelson et al., chap. 8, this volume) could combine adroit gestural-perceptual scaffolding with the emotional engagement and linguistic recasting discussed under tricky mixes for languagedelayed children. Similarly, a productive convergence is suggested between the

Introduction

xv

detailed perceptual and gestural analyses shown within social ecological realism and the dynamic systems theoretical framework used by Pelter-Karpf and Zangl (chap. 9, this volume) in looking at input and development in multiple symbolic domains. Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl—in rich resonance with Nelson et al.'s chapter 8—emphasize dynamic processes that apply to any symbolic domain. The domains they address in chapter 9 are language, visual perception, and drawing. The dynamic processes are interplays between the child's brain and the environment and configurations of brain cells involved in visual percep­ tion, at the neurobiological level. Fundamental principles guiding Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl's work include selectivity in living systems, environment interactions based on the current state of the system (cf. chapters by Aparici et al., Nelson et al., Suzman, and Zukow-Goldring). The authors see development as the organization of dynamic nonlinear systems, initially characterized by a search for coherence that can be described in terms of gestalt principles, and progress­ ing through intermediate stages characterized by overgeneralization and variability to a final state that is coherent and systematic. They identify the child's learning task in symbolic domains as "organizing an array of overlap­ ping signals, contrasts, and contours" (p. 203), which in language learning translates to discovering phonetic features, word boundaries, and grammatical regularities. With respect to both drawing and language development, the authors stress the highly selective processes that determine which input enters into new developmental advances. Consequently, a focus of the chapter is delineation of the characteristics of input that invite selection for learning: saliency, frequency, similarity, "good form," and transparency (cf. Gleitman & Wanner, 1982; Peters, 1983; Slobin, 1985). In language and in all domains, the child proceeds typically from the more frequent, simpler, and more transparent structures to the less common, more complex, and more opaque examplars embedded in input. Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl also emphasize that social, pragmatic, emotional-affective, biological, cognitive, and linguistic factors importantly affect children's selection of input, noting that strong interactions among factors predict early learning (cf. Nelson et al., chap. 8). In chapter 8, Nelson, Welsh, Camarata, Tjus, and Heimann continue their exploration and explication of rare event transactional theory as an explanation for children's development of specific spoken and signed language abilities, as well as skills in other communicative modes such as literacy and art. In common with Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl, their theory emphasizes that learning language and other symbolic abilities is the outcome of dynamic interaction among a variety of factors related to both chiild and environment. A key contribution of this chapter is that the authors see developmental delays (related to autism, hearing impairment, specific language impairment) as well as successes as multidetermined and contextualized. Nelson et al. consider that all successful learning depends on a "Tricky Mix" of lingistic, communicative,

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AKSU-KOC, NELSON, AND JOHNSON

cognitive, emotional, and social factors; a Tricky Mix exists when a variety of factors converge in a positive way. The dynamic nature of learning situations is evident in several ways. First, consistent with the authors already discussed, Nelson et al. see the outcome of child-input interactions as dependent on the child's current state of knowledge. In addition, input is constantly in flux, as particular factors come and go in interactions. Nelson et al. explain their "LEARN" scheme, an acronym signifying essential conditions of Launching (new challenges), Enhancing, Adjustment, Readiness, and Network (integra­ tion). They illustrate both good and unsupportive mixes of conditions with examples from language-delayed children in kindergarten, autistic children, first- and second-language learners, and deaf children. Of special interest is that changes from unsupportive to beneficial mixes of factors can lead to rapid learning in the domains of language, art, and literacy even by children who typically have problems in these areas. Input is crucial for learning, but all factors both internal and external to the child must converge to allow the child learner to take advantage of it. I N T E R R E L A T I O N S BETWEEN COGNITIVE, SYNTACTIC, PRAGAMATIC, AND M E T A L I N G U I S T I C LEVELS

Perez-Leroux (chap. 4) directly addresses one theme central to this volume, the relation between children's cognitive development and their learning to use specific devices in language. Her window into this topic is subjunctive mood in relative clauses as used by Spanish-speaking children at ages 3 to 6. In two studies, the results indicate an association between passing a theory of mind (false belief of another person) task and preference for nonspecific, indefinite reference appropriate to a story situation. This is congruent with an inter­ pretation that cognitive advances can support advances in linguistic sophistication. At the same time, Perez-Leroux recognizes and discusses views that increased complexity in language may sometimes lead to revisions in the child's complex cognitions about possibility, desirability, specificity, and alternative representational states. For example, in work by deVilliers, deVilliers and Hoban (1994) prepositional complements are studied, as in "The mother said that she bought a toy." Once acquired, these complement structures may provide a crucial representational format for examining and ex­ pressing true and false beliefs. In many tests for theory of mind perspective taking, such language-based support would ease the child's monitoring of self-other beliefs. Thus, a child's own belief, "I have seen that this cookie box has no cookies in it," might more easily be tracked relative to the belief of a naive participant who enters a scene later, such as "This cookie box probably has cookies in it." By comparing Spanish-speaking children's acquisition of relative clauses with subjunctive mood to modal acquisition in English, Perez-Leroux is able to show rich complexities in the mapping of "possible worlds" to multiple

Introduction

xvii

developments. Cognitive representations of the object world and the social world are mapped to increased understandings of discourse expectations and to developing linguistic means of expression. In accord with the other chapters in this volume, Perez-Leroux's wide-ranging discussions indicate that within a particular language, once a syntactic structure (e.g., a modal device) is available, its sophisticated and flexible deployment depends on the child's learning further about interpersonal contexts, discourse variations, and semantic subtleties. French modal verbs are investigated by Day, as reported in chapter 5. Six- to twelve-year-olds completed a variety of tasks where preference for or compre­ hension of variants of modal verbs was analyzed. The chapter focuses especially on pewf'may'.pourrazr'might', devait 'should', and doit 'must '.Differentiated and appropriate use of these verbs allows the child to mark important discourse functions. These include possibility, desirability, probability, and necessity. Children at 6 to 8 years showed lower levels of differentiated understanding. Day argues that development across the full 6 to 12 age range involves progres­ sive differentiations of a core initial meaning of possibility. Beyond that, 9 - to 12-year-olds showed in multiple ways that they were advancing in metaprag­ matic awareness of modals and their situations of reference, Thus, children's increasingly precise mastery of modal use is shown to require coordinated developments at the cognitive, syntactic, pragmatic, and metalinguistic levels. L A N G U A G E T Y P O L O G Y AND

C R O S S LI N G U I STI C S T U D Y

Part of Suzman's (chap. 6) argument is based on a comparison of Zulu with Sesotho, a related Bantu language, which has some differences in the noun class and agreement systems. She concludes that crosslinguistic comparison of closely related languages provides the possibilty for determining how multiple linguistic factors (e.g., phonetic, phonological, pragmatic) interact in making inflectional systems accessible to language learners. Zukow-Goldring (chap. 7) attributed caregiver differences in amount and type of gesturing to typological differences between English and Spanish, as detailed above. Almgren and Barrena (chap. 2) compare their own data on Spanish-Basque bilingual devel­ opment and monolingual Basque development to that of Spanish monolinguals previously published. They find extensive bases for concluding that the Basque (Euskal) and Spanish language codes are acquired as separate codes. Among the interesting patterns are creation of new forms in Basque that are ergative and that show independence from adult past-tense forms in Basque. Basque development, whether in a monolingual or bilingual child, in­ cludes multiple markings to distinguish intransitive (absolutive) and transitive (ergative) subjects. A clear contrast is shown in Spanish, again for monolingual and bilingual children, in that transitive and intransitive subjects are treated equally with nominative case marking and with the same associated verbal

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AKSU-KCX;, NELSON, AND J O H N S O N

inflections. These findings on the fundamental separation of the Basque and Spanish language codes are very much in agreement with observations by De Houwer (1991) on English-Dutch bilingual development and Meisel (1989) on German-French bilingual development. It is suggested that when rich, fluent interactional input is provided from early on in each of two languages, children are able to proceed with separate grammatical development from the first stages when morphosyntactic elements first appear. How do children go beyond the most frequent, most prototypical syntactic structures to incorporate those that are less prototypical and also less frequent in the input? Budwig, Stein, and O'Brien (chap.3) look early in language devel­ opment, between 20 to 32 months, at children's uses of nonprototypical subjects. In both German and English, active intransitive subjects are used for the discourse function of shifting perspective to new ways that objects can be used in unfolding play. It flies and She drives illustrate these early utterances. The subjects are contrasts to the active transitive subjects of actor-action-object active sentences, such as The girl drives the car. The crosslinguistic similarity in the use of the active intransitive subjects fits the volume theme of crosslinguis­ tic comparisons. This theme also encompasses the key difference found between German and American children: functional differences in deployment of "middle" voice constructions. In English, the children marked a perspective of resistance or expectancy violation, as in The doors won't open. For German-speaking children, instead, these middle voice constructions related objects to norms and familiar relationships. An example is That belongs (with) the plate. In both languages at these early ages another nonprototypical struc­ ture, the passive voice, was very rare in this research and in most prior research. Passives can serve to shift emphasis and focus to the object of action, as in The car was driven by the boy. Together the findings suggest that between 20 and 32 months there is already attention to and learning of active intransitive subjects and middles with nonagentive subjects. As children work their way toward more abstract categories, their learning mechanisms can thus seek patterns across a range of already used prototypical and nonprototypical structures. The findings and discussion of Budwig et al. are highly compatible with theoretical discussions by Bowerman (1985), Berman and Slobin (1994), and Akhtar and Tomasello (1997). They also fit remarkably well with the theoretical arguments presented in this volume by Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl and by Nelson et al. Common to these different theoretical discussions are emphases on early cognitive flexibility, sensitivity to the typology of the particular language being learned as regards discourse, semantics, and syntax, and sensitivity further to the particular conditions of exposure within a child's dialogues with familiar conversational partners. One example that relates to the Budwig et al. observa­ tions is given in the review section of chapter 8 by Nelson et al. They report that passives—although usually infrequent in input in English to children under age 3 and absent for a majority of children this early in development—are highly

Introduction

xix

learnable by young children when nonprototypical discourse is arranged. Such discourse maintains the dynamics of engagement and participation by the child, but specifically builds in passives as topic-continuing recast replies to the children's sentences. This result further converges with the review by Budwig et al. indicating that language, culture, and within-culture circum­ stances affect the timing of passive acquisition in Bantu, Quiche, Inuktitut, Hebrew, German, English, and other languages. REFERENCES Akhtar, N., & Tomasello, M. (1992). Young children's productivity with word order and verb mor­ phology. Developmental Psychology, 33, 952-965. Berman, R. & Slobin, D. I. (1994). Different ways of relating event in narrative: A crosslinguistic de­ velopmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bowerman, M. (1985). What shapes children's grammars? In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), Thecrosslinguistic study of language, Vo,l. 2: Theoretical issues (pp. 1257-1320). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (1994). Inflection classes, gender and the Principle of Contrast. Language, 70,737-788. Clark, E. V. (1987). The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 1-33). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. De Houwer, A. (1991). The acquisition of two languages from birth: A case study. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, de Villiers, J., de Villiers, P., & Hoban, £.(199 4). "The central problem of functional categories in the English syntax of oral deaf children." In H. Tager-Flusberg (Ed.), Constraints on language acqui­ sition: Studies of atypical children (pp. 9-47). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gleitman, L. R., & Wanner, E. (1982). The state of the state of the art. In E. Wanner & L. R. Gleitman (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp. 3-48) New York: Cambridge University Press. Meisel, J. (1989). Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K. Hyltenstan & L. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism across the lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity and loss (pp. 13-40). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Peters, A. M. (1983). The units of language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slobin, D. I. (19 8 5). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language making capacity. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2: Theoretical issues (pp. 1157-1256). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Snow, C. E. (1994). Beginning from Baby Talk: Twenty years of research on input in interaction. In C. Gallaway & B. Richards (Eds.), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 3-12). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suzman, S. (1995) The discourse origin of agreement in Zulu. In A. Traill.R. Vossen, & M. Biesele (Eds.), The complete linguist: Essays in honour of Patrick Dickens (pp. 319-337). Cologne: Rudiger Koppe Verlag. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description,vol. 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57-149). New York: Cambridge University

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Acquisition of Complex Sentences in Spanish and Catalan Speaking Children

MELINA APARICI

University of Barcelona na ELISABET SERRAT

University ofdrona MONTSERRAT CAPDEVILA

Autonomous University of Barcelonaona MIQUEL SERRA

University of Barcelonana

The main goal of this study is to describe and analyze the acquisition of complex sentences by Spanish and Catalan speaking children, following a functional-constructive theoretical point of view. The two specific aims of the study are, first, to describe the acquisition of complex sentences in Catalan and Spanish, and second, to analyze the scaffolding effect of discourse in children's progress towards the use of syntactic structures of increasing complexity. In view of the literature on language acquisition it is important to bear in mind the following points. First, authors have concentrated mainly on the early stages of the acquisition process, probably because these present the first structures, which are also the easiest to describe and analyze. Second, some languages have received more attention and been studied more extensively than others. Third, with the accumulation of more data, more in-depth research has been carried out on different aspects of acquisition, emphasizing the importance of contextual or discourse variables in the sequence and manner of emergence of different morphosyntactic structures. Regarding the first two points, we find that for most languages there are several studies on the development of the first forms up to the simple sentence. However, the qualitative and quantitative leap to the complex sentence has 1

2

APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

received little attention, leaving it to be explained how and why from a given moment onwards, the child is able to produce and understand complex syntac­ tic structures. A partial exception for this is the experimental research carried out on the comprehension of relative and passive sentences. In general, however, relating the results of these experiments with naturalistic accounts of development has proved to be problematic, mainly because experiments designed to test the syntactic capabilities of children have been carried out in unnatural settings and designed within particular linguistic frameworks (Lieven, 1997). As has been pointed out, some questions in the area of late development cannot be answered because data from naturalistic studies have not been available (Bowerman, 1979; Lieven, 1997). Despite the lack of longitudinal research covering the ages during which complex sentences emerge, a descriptive scheme for their acquisition in English can be established on the basis of the few studies available. These are the longitudinal study of Limber (1973); the crosslinguistic study of Clancy, Jacobsen, and Silva (1976), which analyzed the sequence of emergence of conjunctions in English, German, Turkish, and Italian on the basis of crosssectional and longitudinal data; and the series of studies by Bloom, Lahey, Hood, Lifter, and Fiess (1980); Bloom, Rispoli, Gartner, and Hafitz (1989); and Bloom, Tackeff, and Lahey (198 4), which analyzed in detail the subordinate and coordinate structures that emerge until the age of 3 from syntactic, semantic, and discourse perspectives. These studies show that complex sentences appear between the ages of 2 to 4 years, the first examples emerging between the ages of 256 and 3;o in most children. Furthermore, different types of complex sentences appear in a sequence, and certain forms are not acquired until chil­ dren are older than 4 years. In fact, Brown (1973) proposed that the learning of subordination and coordination is one of the main tasks of Stages IV and V. The first types of complex sentences that appear in children's language are object complement clauses with V+V (nonfinite) structure ('I want to see mommy'; Bloom et al., 1984; Limber, 1973) and coordinate sentences with the conjunction and (Bloom et al., 1980; Limber, 1973; Lust & Mervis, 1980). The first object complements do not contain a grammatical subject ('I want to read the book'); those with an overt subject ('I want mommy to do it') appear later in the data. Different studies also show that the first verbs which take an object complement are restricted to a limited set of the verbs that subcategorize for infinitive complements (Bloom et al., 1984). Limber (1973) described these verbs and found a common sequence of emergence in the children analyzed. Eisenberg and Cairns (1994) pointed out that the development of object embedded clauses is not yet complete at the age of 5 years. Different studies on coordinate clauses conjoined by and (Bloom et al., 1980; Jeremy, 1978; Peterson & McCabe, 1987) showed that at the beginning this conjunction is used not only to express the meaning of addition but plurifunctionally, with various semantic values. Moreover, some authors report

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

3

that before using coordinate conjunctions, children produce juxtaposed sentences which in the adult language would be linked by a conjunction, an observation also made in other languages (Bloom et al., 1980; Clancy et al., 1976; Clemente, 1982, for Spanish; Smoczynska, 1985, for Polish). After the appearance of object embedded clauses of the nonfinite type and coordinate copular sentences, children start to produce relative, causal, tempo­ ral (with when and while), and object embedded (with that and different interrogative pronouns) clauses (Bloom et al., 1980; Bloom et al., 1989; Dale, 1976). The age at which these constructions appear ranges from 27 to 36 months, and their order of emergence varies among children (Bloom et al., 1980). It is worth noting that for Limber (1973) the acquisition of relative clauses takes place after the development of several types of object embedded clauses, whereas this is not the case according to Bloom et al. (1980). Similarly, the adversative conjunction but appears in the coordination of clauses between 32 and 38 months according to Bloom's data, but Peterson (1986) pointed out that children often use this conjunction erroneously until the age of 6. As for the development of relative clauses, some authors find that the first examples do not contain a relative pronoun, and that the main and the relative clause are juxtaposed (Limber, 1973). The omission of the relative pronoun is observed not only in languages like English in which this is correct, but also in languages in which this is not a grammatical option (Kim, 1997, for Korean; Smoczynska, 1985, for Polish). Limber reported that later in development children start using that, and notes, like Bloom et al. (1980), that children younger than 3 years make mistakes in the selection of other relative pronouns. Limber (1973) found that object relative clauses—where the relative pronoun stands for the direct object of the relative clause—are scarce in the data of the children he analyzed even at the age of 3; and Bloom et al. (1980) only found relative clauses in predicative position—modifying the object NP of the main clause, and not the subject NP. These findings concerning the two main variables the combination of which specifies the four major types of relative clause in English,1 raise the question as to which types of relativization (SS, SO, OS, OO) are easier for children and why. A lot of research has been carried out

i There are two main variables in describing the structure of relative clauses. One is the position of the relative clause in the sentence, that is, the syntactic role of the complex NP in eluding the rel­ ative clause in the matrix sentence (also called embeddedness): The NP that the relative clause modifies may be the subject or the object of the main clause (relative clauses in subject position ver­ sus relative clauses in object or predicative position). The other variable is the way the Head Noun functions syntactically within the relative clause, that is, the syntactic role of the Head Noun in the relative clause (also called Focus): the noun that the relative clause modifies (and thus the realtive pronoun) may be the subject or the object of the relative clause (subject relative clauses versus object relative clauses). The combination of these two variables yields foru major types of relative clauses: SS (subject position, subject relative clause), SO (subject position, object relative clause), OS (object position, subject relative clause), OO (object position, object relative clause).

4

APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

on the levels of difficulty of comprehension of these four types (for Spanish, Barrera & Fraca, 1991; Ferreiro, Othenin-Girard, Chipman, & Sinclair, 1976) although the results are contradictory so far (for a revision, see Bowerman, 1979; de Villiers &de Villiers, 1985). Studies on the acquisition of causal clauses, in general, point to the fact that children at this age have difficulties with causal connectors (Ferreiro & Sinclair, 1971; Sinclair, 1967). However, Bloom (1991) as well as McCabe and Peterson (1985) reported only a few semantic errors in the expression of causality by means of because and so. The data gathered by Clancy et al. (1976) on the other hand, support the idea that children make semantic mistakes in the use of because and that they do not completely master its adult meaning before the age of 4. In these lines, Aksu (1978) found a developmental sequence in the expres­ sion of causality in Turkish. The first expression of causal relations between the ages of 2;o to 254 is by the juxtaposition of two propositions without any connectives (also reported by Clancy et al., 1976). Around the age of 254 the first connectives which, however, are not subordinating constructions appear in the context of question responses. Starting around 350 years, causal connectives that involve syntactic subordination, the differentiation of causal and temporal relations, and the transformation of a concrete causal relation into an abstract one, emerge. Conditional clauses, manner clauses, and temporal clauses with before and after are not used productively in the period analyzed by Bloom et al. (1980). Experimental studies (Stevenson & Pollitt, 1987) confirm that temporal terms like before and after are not mastered until the age of 4. By the same token, Clancy et al. (1976) reported that in the four languages under study, temporal clauses appear between 356 and 456 and that conditional clauses appear around the age of 356. Another connector that children do not seem to master until more advanced ages is the concessive (e.g., although); experimental studies (Champaud & Bassano, 1994) indicated that children between 7 to 10 years still have problems in the comprehension and production of this type of clauses. In relation to the second point outlined earlier, it can be said that the acqui­ sition of complex sentences has not received much cross-linguistic analysis. For Catalan and Spanish, available data are really scarce. For Spanish, descriptions come from longitudinal studies of more general scope not particularly focused on complex sentence acquisition (Hernandez-Pina, 1984), from cross-sectional studies (Aguado, 1988; Clemente, 1982), from children's narratives (e.g., Sebastian & Slobin, 1994), and from experimental studies on a particular type of complex sentence (e.g., Perez-Leroux, chap. 4, this volume). We also have some data about the acquisition of complex sentences in other Romance languages such as Italian (Antelmi, 1996; Clancy et al., 1976), French (Clark, 1985), and Gallician (Perez-Pereira & Castro, 1994; Garcia-Soto, 1996). The case study by Hernandez-Pina (1984) presented the order of emergence of major types of complex sentences in Spanish. The first connectives are

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

5

observed at the age of 25 months: these are que 'that' that appears in object complements and relative clauses, y 'and', si 'if, and porque 'because'. Around the age of 27 months the first coordinate adversative sentences with pero 'but' appear; i month later, the child starts to produce coordinate disjunctive sentences with o 'or'. At 30 months the first adverbial clauses expressing purpose appear; and at 3 years we see the first adversatives with sino 'if not' as well as the remaining types of complex clauses: conditional, comparative, temporal, and manner. Although the repertoire of complex adverbial sentences is complete by the age of 3, the child still frequently makes semantic errors in the use of these sentences.2 Clemente (1982) reported that some complex sentences are already present in children's repertoires between the ages of 2 and 3 and that connectives are used with far more semantic values than in adult speech. For example, the conjunction y 'and' is used to express causal, temporal, and adversative values, among others, a finding also reported for English (Bloom et al., 1980; Jeremy, 1978; Peterson & McCabe, 1987). The sequence of acquisition observed confirms the results of Hernandez-Pina despite the difference in ages. Between 2 to 3 years Clemente found all types of complex sentences except for adversative, disjunctive, and adverbial clauses, the most frequently observed category being object-embedded clauses of the type V+V (nonfinite). Between the ages of 3 and 4 most of the children used adversative sentences with pero 'but', and causal and purpose clauses. It was not until children were over 450 that conditional, comparative, manner and temporal clauses and disjunctive sentences with o 'or' appeared in the data. Nevertheless, the author reported that children often made mistakes in the conjugation of the verb form in the subjunctive, which is required in purpose clauses. Perez-Leroux (chap. 4, this volume) similarly observed that proper selection of the subjunctive in some syntactic contexts is late, and subjunctive relative clauses are not mastered until the age of 6. There are a few cross-sectional studies on the frequency of use of complex sentences by Spanish-speaking children. A study on morphosyntactic compe­ tence at the age of 3o months (Aguado, 1988) showed that 41.6 % of the children were able to use coordinate sentences with y 'and' and 58.3% some type of sub­ ordinate clause. These data indicate that the most frequent subordinate clauses are relatives, followed by comparatives3 and locatives—although the latter are used rather erroneously. These subordinate clauses are followed, in turn, by ob­ ject, temporal, causal, conditional, and manner clauses. A study by Pandolfi (1988), however, showed that the most frequent complex sentences around the age of i;8 were object complement and relative clauses, the frequency of which increased around 258 when some adverbial sentences also appeared in the data. 2 Notice that these data refer to the first time the child uses one of thse forms, but not to their productive use. 3 The author is considering simple comparative sentences (with the second verb being omitted).

6

A P A R I C I , S E R R A T , C A P D E V I L A , S E R R A

These findings concerning the sequence of acquisition and the frequency of use of complex sentences by Spanish children, although sometimes contradic­ tory and incomplete, converge on the observation that conditional, manner, comparative, temporal, and possibly disjunctive sentences are acquired late and are used with less frequency. This generalization is supported by studies carried out with children older than 4 years (Gili-Gaya, 1972). The findings also show that different types of complex sentences emerge sequentially. This observation has been explained variously by different authors. Some appeal to the possibility that functional categories such as the complemen­ tizer undergo maturation or lexical growth (Antelmi, 1996); whereas others appeal to the effect of the language addressed to children (Peterson & McCabe, 1996), for instance, the frequency of occurrence of conjunctions in the input (Lieven, 1997). Still others refer to factors related to cognitive development (Bloom et al., 1980; Ferreiro & Sinclair, 1971; Sinclair, 1967), semantic complex­ ity (Aksu, 1978; Clancy et al., 1976), metacognitive abilities (Karmiloff-Smith, I986b), syntactic complexity (Brown, 1973; Chomsky, 1969; Lust, 1977; Lust & Mervis, 1980), or a combination of some of these factors. It is important to bear in mind, however, that although children have a lot of knowledge about language from the moment they start to understand and produce complex sentences, they are at the same time refining and developing it; the higher the level of language competence, the greater the interrelation between different factors. This interdependence of the different goals of linguistic development makes the explanation of the causes of change through time difficult. Nevertheless, we can focus on a given aspect such as the conver­ sational context, as we consider the role of this variable, together with cognitive abilities, to be essential in the process of language acquisition. We adopt a perspective that assumes the process of language acquisition is gradual, involving first, the acquisition of specific items, then, the building up of more complex and abstract linguistic structures that progressively allow a greater productivity (Tomasello & Brooks, 1999). This process of progressive development is based on children's cognitive and communicative strategies: Children analyze the linguistic structures they possess and deduce regularities and common features from them. At the beginning, these structures have limited productivity, either because they are formulaic expressions or positional patterns that will be enlarged and analyzed as a result of both feed­ back in the input and developments in cognitive capacities. Children receive direct and indirect support from adults who contribute to this expansion by adding to, filling in, or initiating their productions. Moreover, children's linguistic competence advances with their cognitive level, allowing them to create new combinations from previously used constructions which convey different meanings by means of more abstract linguistic structures. We are talking about a process of recursive learning (Karmiloff-Smith, 19863) of a deductive-inductive kind, which takes place at different levels at the same time,

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

7

and which is based on the level of linguistic knowledge at the child's disposal at that moment of the acquisition process (L6pez-Ornat, 1999). Because in the present study we assume this theoretical perspective, it will be useful to comment on studies that point to the relevance of cognitive and discourse factors to the acquisition of complex sentences. Authors who hold that the order of acquisition follows from factors of cognitive development, like Clancy et al. (1976), find a common developmental sequence of semantic notions in different languages despite differences in the means of formal expression. They suggest that the meanings—the notions of conjunction—are acquired before the forms—the surface particles that mark them. In this sense, Bloom et al. (1980) found that the sequence of semantic development is analo­ gous to that of conceptual development: Children learn to form collections of things—additive coordination—before forming series of things—temporal, causal, and adversative conjunction. The role that contextual or discourse variables (i.e., input) play in the sequence and manner of emergence of different structures has also been variously emphasized. Bloom (1991) and Bloom et al. (1980, 1984, 1989) analyzed the acquisition of complex syntactic structures from the perspective of discourse cohesion, exploring how children use previous adult utterances to connect their own in forming the two clauses that constitute the complex sentence. Their results show that the only structures used in a cohesive relation to a previous adult utterance in more than 20% of the cases were the causal and adversative conjunctions; the most frequent one being because. All the remain­ ing complex sentences involved cohesive ties between two clauses both produced by the child, in at least 90% of the cases. The authors interpret these results as evidence that children do not learn complex sentences by connecting their own production to that of an adult and conclude that learning complex structures is not the result of reciprocity in discourse. However, other authors such as Greenfield and Smith (1976) claimed that learning increasingly complex structures involves reciprocity in discourse. Clancy et al. (1976) similarly found that children often relate their first coordi­ nations, antitheses, sequences, and reasons to another speaker's utterance. The study by Aksu (1978) also emphasized discourse in addition to syntactic and semantic factors in accounting for the order of emergence of causal connec­ tives. In her data the first connectives occur in the context of question responses, as well as having discourse functions of deixis or anaphora, and there is a progression from use of context-dependent connectives to the use of connectives independent of contextual support. Furthermore, Peterson and McCabe (1996), who assessed the parental scaffolding of contextual informa­ tion in children's narratives from 252 to 357 years, concluded that parents who ask many questions about when, where, who, and what foster context-setting skills in children, and that parent-child discourse patterns affect the develop­ ment of the skill to embed one's utterances within a spatio temporal framework.

8

APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

The importance of pragmatic and discourse factors related to the input has often been addressed in relation to the acquisition of simple linguistic structures in the early stages. Studies focusing on the facilitative effects of lan­ guage adults use to address children point to the paucity of complex structures and high frequency of questions (Pine, 1994; Snow, 1986). There are also data showing that structures such as nominal, prepositional, adjectival, and adver­ bial phrases are used for the first time as dependent on previous adult utterances (Serrat, Capdevila, & Serra, 1994), thus emphasizing the role of conversational context in the acquisition of simple syntactic structures. Given the purpose of the present study and the state of the art in the study of the acquisition of complex sentences in different languages, this chapter provides: (a) an outline of the order of emergence and development of different types of complex sentences for Spanish and Catalan, focusing both on sub­ ordination and coordination, and (b) an analysis of the way first complex sentences appear in relation to the conversational context. Our prediction about (b) is that the first 'complex sentences' will depend on a previous utterance in the conversational context, that is, the main clause in the case of subordinate clauses, or the first sentence in the case of coordinate sentences, will be found in the adult production. Thus, we predict a first period in which children will not produce 'complex sentences' independent of context but will rely on previous adult utterances. Later on, they will produce complete (or independent) complex sentences alongside those which depend on the conversational context. Description of the Syntax of Spanish and Catalan Catalan and Spanish are Romance languages with similar syntactic and morphological structure. From the morphological point of view, both are infiectionally rich, and the verb is always marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number. According to the traditional description, there are three major conjugation classes which contain both regular and irregular verbs. Again in both languages, nouns and adjectives are marked infiectionally for number and gender. From the syntactic point of view, both Catalan and Spanish are configurational head-first languages, both have syntactic w/j-movement, and both are pro-drop. In both, main verbs display the same behavior with respect to the position of adverbs, quantifiers, negation, yes/no, and w/i-questions; and neither language is subject to strict word order restrictions. Finally, in both the structure and behavior of complex sentences, the issue at hand here, are ex­ tremely similar. The only differences are restricted to the lexicon and phonology. Within complex sentences (Badia, 1994), we need to consider coordinate and subordinate structures. Coordinate sentences in both Spanish and Catalan can be copular coordinate clauses linked by the conjunction i/y 'and' (e.g., Maria recogio el examen y se marcho 'Mary picked up the exam and she left'),

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

9

adversative coordinate clauses linked by the conjunction pero/pero 'but' and finally, disjunctive coordinate clauses linked by the conjunction o 'or'. Subordinate or embedded complex sentences can be temporal, conditional, manner, relative, causal, purpose, and complement clauses. Object complement clauses function as the direct object of the main verb they are subcategorized by, and may have a finite or a nonfinite verb. Nonfinite object clauses have the structure V+V (nonfinite), the subject of the embedded clause is never overt and always corresponds to the subject of the main clause, as in Quiero ir al cine 'I want to go to the cinema.' These constructions differ from their English counterparts where the subject of the embedded clause can be identical to or different from the subject of the main clause, as in 'I want Peter to do the homework'. Finite object clauses, on the other hand, are usually introduced by the complementizer: que 'that,' com/como 'as', si 'if or by any of the relative pronouns—que/que 'that'/'which', qui/quien 'who', etc., in case of indirect questions—and have as their head a tensed verb in the indicative (e.g., Maria dice que no se acuerda 'Mary says (that) she does not remember it') or the subjunctive mood. Causal subordinate sentences always have a finite verb in the indicative mood and are introduced by perque/porque 'because,' que 'that' or com que/como 'as'. A typical example is Maria no vino a clase porque estaba enferma 'Mary did not come to class because she was ill'. Purpose clauses can be finite or nonfinite. When nonfinite, they are usually introduced by the preposition per/para 'for'/'to'; when finite, they are introduced by perque/para que'so that', and the verb is always in the subjunctive mood, as in Lo llamarepara que manana no se olvideTll call him so that he will remember it tomorrow'. Relative clauses in Catalan and Spanish, as in English, show different types depending on whether the noun they modify is the subject, the object, or the prepositional complement of the relative clause. Accordingly, they can be subject relatives (e.g., Esta es la chica que vive con el 'This is the girl who lives with him'), object relatives (e.g., Esta es la chica que Pan quiere 'This is the girl who(m) Pau loves'), or prepositional relatives (e.g., Esta es la chica con la que sale Pan 'This is the girl with whom Pau is going out'). They are usually introduced by the complementizer que 'that'/'who', which may be preceded by a preposi­ tion in prepositional complements. And, depending on their position within the main clause, relative clauses may modify the subject NP (relative clauses in subject position) or the object NP of the main clause (relative clauses in predicative or object position). Manner clauses can also be classified into finite and nonfinite depending on the form of the verb. Finite manner clauses are typically introduced by the connective com/como ('as') alone or in combination with si 'if, as in Lo hicieron como se lo habian pedido 'They did it as they had been asked to'. Nonfinite manner subordinates, on the other hand, have the form V+V (nonfinite), and

10

A P A R I C I , S E R R A T , C A P D E V I L A , S E R R ARRA

show the same behavior in Catalan, Spanish, and English (e.g., Hago las redacciones buscando todas las palabras en el diccionario 'I do the compositions looking up all the words in the dictionary'). In conditional clauses the verb may be either in the indicative (Si lo explicas asi, se enfadardn 'If you explain this like that, they will get angry') or in the subjunctive (Si lo explicases asi, se enfadarian'Ifyou explained this like that, they would get angry'). In either case, it is typically introduced by the connective sf if'. Finally, temporal clauses can be introduced with the adverbial subordinator quan/cuando 'when' (as in Cuando el cantaba, todos le escuchaban 'When he sang, everybody listened to him'), or the temporal adverbs sempre que/siempre que 'always that', mentre/mientras 'meanwhile,' abans que/antes de que 'before that' and despres que/despues de que 'after that', among others. The last two adverbials can also be followed by a preposition instead of the subordinator, and by a nonfinite verb form: despres de/despues de and abans de/antes de. Temporal embedded clauses can also have the verb in the indicative or in the subjunctive mood. METHOD

Sample The sample consists of 10 children: four bilingual Catalan-Spanish, one mono­ lingual Spanish, and five monolingual Catalan. All the subjects belong to the Serra-Sol£ corpus (in the CHILDES Project; MacWhinney, 1995), which con­ tains monthly video recorded data (30-45 minutes) from children in spontaneous interaction with a familiar adult, usually the mother. The data are longitudinal, because the children were studied from i to 4 years of age. Information about the characteristics of the sample is presented in Table 1.1. Procedure All data were transcribed and coded according to the CHAT format of the CHILDES Project. The coding of the syntactic structures was elaborated by the authors and the data were analyzed with FREQ and KWAL CLAN programs. We selected all declarative utterances that contained a 'complex sentence' with or without a main clause. Imitations, repetitions, and routines were excluded. Different types of complex sentences were coded according to the following classification: coordinate sentences; object, purpose, causal, relative, manner, conditional, temporal, consecutive, concessive, and locative subordi­ nate clauses. We also coded whether complex sentences were produced with or without a main clause. For the sake of exposition, the data have been grouped in periods of 3 months, from age i;io to 450.

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

n

TABL E 1.1 Sample Description3 CHILD

Sex

01 PEP 02 ANT

Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Male Female

osALV 05 GUI 06 MAR 07 JOS 08 CIS

09LAU loEDU 12 CAT

Order* F F F NF NF NF NF NF NF F

Language

Age Range

MLUw

Catalan Bilingual Catalan Catalan Bilingual Bilingual Catalan Catalan Spanish Bilingual

i;io,6-3;io,n i;ii,2-3;o,24 2;5,i3-3;i,l3 2:7,9-3:11,20 2;5,5-3;io,4 2:7,28-450,3 2:6,23-3:11,14 2;7,20-3;io,i 3:10,20-3:10,20 1:11,1-4:3,21

1.71-3.64 1.46-2.82 1.97-2.82 2.18-3.13 2.30-2.76 2.26-3.14 2.36-3.13 1.89-3.63 2.31-2.31 2.00-3.61

a

The enumeration of the subjects is not correlative because as the original enumeration of the corpus has been maintained. The MLUw's represent those of the first period when complex sen­ tences emerge and those of the last period of observation. b F: Firstborn; NF: Nonfirstborn.

The MLU was calculated in words—MLUw onwards—because, as has been noted by other authors (e.g., Bates, 1976), a computation of MLU in morphemes is problematic in languages with rich agreement morphology like Catalan or Spanish. It was calculated for all utterances, except for imitations, repetitions, interjections, yes/no answers and routines. The two languages, Spanish and Catalan, are dealt with together for the reasons outlined before. RESULTS

Emergence and Development of Complex Sentences The proportion of complex sentences increases linearly with age for the period under study, as shown in Fig. 1.1. Initially, the overall proportion is very low, whereas by 4 years of age complex sentences constitute around 14% of children's declarative utterances. The average age of emergence of complex sentences for all children was found to be 256 (see Fig. 1.2) although for three of them (Pep, Antoni, & Caterina) this age was 250. The most precocious child in the sample was Pep, who produced complex sentences at i;io, and the child who was latest, Edu, uttered his first complex sentences at 3510. The average MLUw of the subjects when complex sentences start to appear was 2.41, whereas those of the three

H

APA RI C I,S E R R A T , C APD E VI L A, S ER R A

FIG . 1.1. Proportion of complex sentences by age. Note. Proportion of complex sentences out of the total number of declarative utterances by age.

FIG . 1.2. Onset, last occurrence, and average age of emergence of complex sentences for all the children. Note. For each type of complex sentence, the beginning of the horizontal line shows the first time at which a child starts to produce it, and the end of the line indicates the last time in which a child starts to produce them. The lines ending in an arrow indicate that not all the children have begun to produce sentences of that kind in the ages observed. The vertical lines indicate the average age of emergence for each type of complex sentence. One child (Edu) has not been included in this figure for lack of data.

t Acquisition of Complex Sentences

13

early speakers were 2.02, 1.88, and 2.20, respectively. Edu's MLUw when he started producing complex sentences was 2.69, that is, similar to the MLUw of the majority of children at 2;6 when they started using complex sentences. As for the sequence of emergence of different types of complex sentences, our data (see Fig. 1.2) suggest the existence of a first stage, between 254 and 259, in which object clauses, coordinate sentences, causal, relative, and purpose clauses emerge, in order; and a second stage, from 2;io onwards, in which manner, conditional, and temporal clauses emerge, again in order. Contrary to other types of complex sentences, manner and temporal clauses are not produced by all the children in the period under analysis. In this second stage we also observe some isolated examples of consecutive and concessive clauses produced by one child, but no instances of locative clauses. Fig. 1.3 shows the proportion of different types of complex sentences produced by the children of our sample in the age period under study. There is a parallel between frequency of production and age of emergence: The most frequent types of complex sentences appear earlier (coordinate, object, and causal), and the least frequent types appear late.

FIG . 1.3 Proportion of different types of complex sentence by age Note. Proportion of different types of complex sentences out of total number of complex sentences by age. Data have been grouped in periods of 9 months for the sake of exposition. The proportion of temporal, conditional, and manner clauses appears under the label 'other', given their low proportion in all the periods. Notice that specially in the first periods, not all the children produce complex sentences.

14

APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

The development of different types of complex sentences can be summa­ rized as follows: Object Complement Sentences. For all children the first Object comple­ ment sentences were of the type V+V (nonfinite) as illustrated in Example (i). These were followed by complements introduced by a verb in the imperative and the complementizer que 'what' or que 'that' (Example 2). Constructions with the complementizer que'that' with other verb forms (Example 3) and also with si 'if (Example 4) were used later. (1)

vull posar el bebe want-iSG to put the baby '(I) want to put the baby'

(Cat2;8.2o)

(2) mira que he fet look what have-iSG done 'look what (I) have done'

(Pep 259.10)

(3) die que la Magda se posi mes cap alia say-iSG that the Magda herself- move-3SG more over there '(I) say that Magda move over there' (Cat 258.20) (4) a veure si esta aqui al calaix see-INF if is here in the drawer 'see if (it) is here in the drawer'

(Cat 258.20)

For all children the earliest and most frequent nonfinite complements were with the verb voler 'want' In fact, during the ages under study, children used object clauses as complements of a limited set of verbs, namely, voler 'want', agradar'like'y deixar'let', fer'make', safer'know', ca/er'need', intentar'try, ajudar 'help', and mi'rar'look'. Purpose and Causal Clauses. The purpose clauses that appeared in our data consist of preposition + VP (nonfinite; Example 5) or of para que 'so that' + VP (finite, Example 6). The nonfinite type appeared earlier for most of the children. As for causal clauses, these were introduced by porque 'because' (Example 7) and by que 'for' (Example 8). (5) aquesta regadora es per posar llet this watering can is to put milk 'this watering can is good for putting milk'

(Cat 258.20)

(6) perque passeu so that get-2PL through 'so that (you) get through'

(Jos 350.8)

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

(7) perque s'havia cremat tola la casa because itself-had-3SG burned down all the house 'because all the house was burned down' (8) tnevoy a casa mia que tengo myself-go-iSG to home mine that have 'I go home for (I) am very cold'

mucho frio much cold

15

(Pep 352.14)

(Cat 351.22)

Coordinate Sentences. Coordinate sentences appeared first with the con­ junction y 'and' (Example 9). These were followed, only in the data of some children and with a lower proportion, by coordinates with pero 'but' and o 'or' (Example 10). No other conjunctions were found in the data. (9) ja I'hem dutxat i ara esth net already it-have-iPL showered and now is clean '(we) have already showered it and (it) is clean now'

(Cat 2510.3)

(10) ja he comprat perd mira no m'han donat bossa already have-iSG been shopping but look not me-have-3PL given bag '(I) have already been shopping but look (they) have not given me a bag' (Cat 258.20)

Relative Clauses. The first relative clauses found in the speech of most of the children consisted of an isolated NP—without the main clause—followed by the relative clause (Example 11). The first full relative clauses that emerged were subject relatives (Example 12). Object relative clauses appeared later, and not for all the children (Example 13). Also all the relative clauses found in our data (150 for all the children and ages observed), except for one case, were relative clauses modifying the object NP of the main clause. Finally, the only relative comple­ mentizer observed was gwe'that' and relative clauses with prepositional elements resulted in errors (Example 14). (11) Adult: aquell negre que vau veure era un conillet o no? que em vas dir que vau veure? 'that black one (you) saw was a rabbit, wasn't it? what did (you) tell me (you) saw?' Pep: un negre que tenia la cara aixi (Pep 2511.20) a black that had-3SG the face like this 'a black one that had a face like this' (12) es uncotxet que semblava unautobusset is a small car that looked-3SGlike a small bus '(this) is a small car that looked like a small bus'

(Cat 350.2)

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APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

(13) sap un conte la Laia que tu pare no sabras (Pep 2511.10) knows-3SG a story the Laia that you dad not will-know-2SG 'Laia knows a story that you dad do not know' (14) *un nen dolent que hem saltat tots junts (Pep, 252.3) a child naughty that (we) have-iPL jumped all together -instead of: 'un nen amb el que hem saltat (tots junts)' 'a naughty child with whom (we) have jumped' Temporal Clauses. Children produced temporal clauses with cuando 'when' (Example 15). Only three children used temporal clauses introduced by other elements, such as despues de'after' + VP(nonfinite, Example 16). No other temporal connectives were found in the data. (15) perque quan eres petit tenies un babero petit because when were-2SG child had-2SG a bib small 'because when (you) were a child (you) had a small bib'

(Cat 258.20)

(16) despres de dormir ja veureu com fan elMcguiver after of sleep-INF already willsee-2PL how do-3PL theMcguiver 'after sleeping (you) will see that Mcguiver is on' (Pep 358.11) Conditional and Manner Clauses. Conditional clauses were used with si 'if (Example 17), whereas manner clauses appeared with como 'as' or como sf as if (Example 18), and with VP (nonfinite; Example 19). (17) si li mossego li fara molt if him bite-iSG him will do-3SG much 'if (I) bite him (I) will hurt him'

mal harm

(Pep 355.5)

(18) s'esta mirant al mirall com si fos una coqueta herself-is looking at the mirror as if were-3SG a coquettish '(she) is looking at the mirror as if (she) were coquettish' (Pep 259.10) (19) espera que posare I'hipopotam aqui mossegant elferro wait that will-iSG put the hippopotamus here biting the iron 'wait, (I) am going to put the hippopotamus here biting the iron' (Pep 259.10) Emergence of First Complex Sentences in Relation to the Conversational Context The second question we attempt to answer is how early complex sentences emerge in relation to the conversational context. The results are presented in Table 1.2.

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

17

T A B L E 1.2

Ratio of Complex Sentences Dependent on and Independent of the Verbal Context, for the Initial and the Final Periods of Study, for all Children3 Type of Complex Sentence

Causal Purpose Coord. Object Relative

Initial Periods

Final Periods

without main clause

with main clause

without main clause

with main clause

5-o (45) 2.3 (19) 7-0 (77) i.o (23) i.o (13)

i.o (9) i.o (8) 2.6 (62)

1.6(30) i.o (6) 1.6 (52) i.o (10)

1.6 (21)

1.0 (2)

i.o (18) 2.1 (13) i.o (32) 4.2(42) 4-0 (8)

1.0 (11)

a

The initial period corresponds to the first 6 months starting at the age each child starts to produce complex sentences, and the final period corresponds to the last 6 months for which there is recorded data (around y,6 to 4;o). Figures in parentheses represent frequencies.

As predicted, children first produce some types of complex sentences as dependent on a previous adult utterance that constitutes the main clause. Later, they construct the whole sentence independently, producing both the subordi­ nate and the main clause themselves more often than previously. This trend is observed in the case of purpose, coordinate and causal sentences, as illustrated in Examples (2oa) to (izb) and quantified in Table 1.2. (2oa)Adult: hem defer una casa pel conillet, eh? (we) have to make a house for the bunny, eh? Pep: perque no vingui el Hop (2511.10) so that no comes the wolf 'so that the wolf do not come' (2ob)Pep: mira, ara la Carla em deixa el groc perque fad un sol look, now the Carla me-lends-3SG the yellow so that make-iSG a sun 'look, now Carla lends me the yellow 50 that (I) draw a sun' (355-5) (2ia) Adult: que ets un bebe una mica gran? 'are (you) a big baby?' Gisela: (3:6.28) si, i aquestaeslamevaamigaMarteta que es I'amiga del Miky mouse 'yes, and this is my friend Marteta who is the friend of the Micky mouse'

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APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

(2i.b)Caterina: ja I'hem dutxat i am estci net already it-have-iPL showered and now is clean '(we) have already showered it and (it) is clean now'

(2;io.3)

(i2.a) Pep: i despres va sortirfoc (3:2.14) 'and then fire burst out' Adult: foe? 'fire?' Adult: i perque va sortirfoc? 'and why did fire burst out?' Pep: perque s'havia cremat tota la casa. because itself-had-3SG burned down all the house 'because all the house was burned down' (22.b)Caterina: aquest rellotge me'l tine que posar perque si no se'm para. this watch myself-have-iSGtoput because if no it-self-me-stops 'this watch (I) have to put on because if not (it) stops' (3:1.22) As for conditional, temporal, and manner clauses, the data did not provide enough evidence to confirm our prediction that they appear first as dependent on an adult utterance. There were only a few examples, most of which belonged to the final periods of the study, and they were produced by a few of the children, as noted before. Contrary to our prediction, object and relative clauses already appeared in the first periods quite frequently as independent productions with both the main and the subordinate clause uttered by the child (see Table 1.2). However, the difference between the number of clauses independent of context and the number of clauses dependent on context was greater in the final than in the initial periods, reflecting an increase in the number of object and relative clauses with a main clause in the final periods. This shows that, for these two types of sentences, there is also an evolution from more to less dependency on conversational context. DISCUSSION

These results concerning the acquisition of complex sentences attest to a gradual process of development. First, at the beginning, complex sentences are rather scarce in comparison to other syntactic structures, whereas at 450 they represent 14% of children's declarative utterances. Although there are no studies which inform about the frequency of use of these constructions in the adult model, the cross-sectional studies reviewed earlier suggest that children's use is not the same as adult's. Second, children start to produce complex sentences from instances of a particular structure, namely, object complements

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

19

of the type V+VP (nonfinite) which require neither a connective nor agreement or temporal markers on the verb. Also, they are used by children as comple­ ments of a reduced set of verbs. Third, there is a regularity in the developmental sequence observed, in that, children start to produce each type with a particu­ lar structural realization. For example, they start with nonfinite verb forms in the case of object complements and purpose clauses, with the relative clause in object position in the case of relative constructions, or with a specific connec­ tive or conjunction such as y 'and' in the case of coordinate sentences or cuando 'when' in the case of temporal clauses. Later, they expand this use to other sub­ types or possible realizations, such as finite object complement and purpose clauses, other coordinate conjunctions (o 'or', pero 'but'), temporal clauses with despues de 'after', etc. Moreover, most of the children do not produce all varieties of complex sentences during the period under study. Tyack and Gottsleben (1986) reached the same conclusion in their data. As for the time of emergence of complex sentences, the age of 256 observed in the present study corresponds to the age observed by Hernandez-Pina (1984) for Spanish, by Perez-Pereira and Castro (1994) for Gallician, by Clark (1985) for French, and by Bloom (1991) and Limber (1973) for English. The sequence of emergence of the different types of complex sentences is parallel to the one found in other longitudinal studies as well. In particular, our results concerning the earlier period when object, coordinate, causal, relative, and purpose clauses appear, and the later period when manner, conditional, and temporal clauses emerge, are consistent with those reported by Bloom et al. (1980), Clemente (1982), Dale (1976), Hernandez-Pina (1984) and Limber (1973). We have also found some differences from the patterns observed in English. Temporal clauses with when are reported by Bloom et al. (1980), Clancy et al. (1976), and Dale (1976) to appear very early, whereas in our data we find this clause type not at the beginning but later in development together with condi­ tional and manner clauses, similar to the pattern in other Romance languages such as Italian (Antelmi, 1996) and French (Clark, 1985). The explanation for this difference cannot follow from the syntax or semantics of the connectives such as when because in these respects English is similar to Catalan or Spanish. It can instead be related to the fact that in languages like Catalan and Spanish complex temporal relations are expressed mainly by means of verbal morphol­ ogy such as the subjunctive mood or the past or future tenses of the indicative mood. Each of these options needs the mastery of morphological devices such as: tense, aspect, mood, person, and number markers—combined in one suffix. This is a system that needs to be learned in its own right and some studies in Spanish and Catalan suggest that children do not reach full competence in verbal inflection before the age of 3;o (Fernandez, 1994; Serrat, 19 97).4 It may 4 Except for present, present perfect, and particular cases of other tenses (e.g., second person sin­ gular of the subjunctive, to express negative imperative sentences).

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APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

be that the complexity of this verbal system contributes to its slow acquisition and the later development of temporal clauses which involve the use of partic­ ular verbal tenses (e.g., subjunctive mood) not implicated in the use of complex sentences acquired earlier. As was noted, we have observed a relationship between sequence of emergence and frequency of use. In particular, our data show that coordinate, object, and causal clauses that are acquired earlier are also those that are more frequently used. These clause types have been found to have a higher frequency than conditional, temporal, and manner clauses in children's speech in some other languages as well (e.g., Perez-Pereira & Castro, 1994). This observation, together with Portillo's (1994) finding of high frequency of use of the same structures in the speech of Spanish adolescents and adults lead to some consid­ erations about the role of input: children learn first those types of clauses that are most frequent in the input, apart from, of course, other intervening factors. We have already pointed out that the first complex sentences children use are object complements of the type V+V (nonfinite), a finding also observed in most longitudinal studies of English (Bloom et al., 1989; Limber, 1973) and other languages (Antelmi, 1996, for Italian; Barrena, 1994, for Basque; Clark, 1985, for French; Perez-Pereira & Castro, 1994, for Gallician). This observation across so many languages raises a number of questions: Are these the first complex structures to emerge because they are (a) functionally important, (b) syntactically less complex, (c) semantically less complex, (d) require few memory resources and less planning of information, or (e) frequent in the input? For all the children, complementation with the verb voler/querer 'want' appears early and most frequently, as also reported, for instance, by Antelmi (1996) and Clark (1985). It could be that this verb provides the child with a model for the abstraction of rules required in the production and comprehen­ sion of a wide range of infinitive constructions (Limber, 1973). It has also been argued that these utterances may be semiformulaic expressions (e.g. Bloom et al., 19 8 4) which are learned first and may have a potential as building pieces for a wider scope and more formal system (Lieven, 1997). We have also observed that the first constituent children expand by use of complex sentences is the object as in the case of object complements and relative clauses that modify the object NP of the main clause. It seems, then, that children use their knowledge about complex constructions—such as relative and complement clauses—to expand the object constituents before the subject constituents. Several explanations concerning the mechanisms involved can be proposed; for instance, the typically sentence-final position of an object NP might pose less memory demands to the child, whereas modification of a subject NP would require keeping the nucleus longer in memory (Limber, 1973). It can also be argued from the functional point of view that these structures play an important role in the individuation of the objects of the world children are talking about (Lees, 1960). On the other hand, children

i

Acquisition of Complex Sentences

21

might be using object clauses early and frequently because many of the verbs involved—think, wish, pretend, etc.—do not have other ways of referring to their object. In fact, these are verbs which even when they take a simple object NP in the adult language are interpreted as elliptical, that is, with an implicit verb as in 'I think on a Martini', 'I suggest a bet', 'I want a Martini' (Limber, 1973). As for the role of the relative pronoun in the embedded clause, we have found that subject relatives appear earlier than object relatives in most of our children's language: first OS, followed by OO, with hardly any examples of SS and SO. These results contradict those of previous studies in Spanish (Barrera & Fraca, 1991; Ferreiro et al., 1976) which found the following order of difficulty in the production and comprehension of relative clauses: SS, OO, OS, SO. However, our results support those of Bloom et al. (1980) and Limber (i973) for English, and of Clark (1985) for French. The second question this study attempted to answer was the emergence of complex sentences in relation to the conversational context. A comparison of the first and later stages revealed that a high proportion of the complex sentences of the initial periods depend on a previous adult production. That is, children use the linguistic support found in the language addressed to them as a strategy to increase the complexity of their utterances (Tomasello & Brooks, 1999), as has also been pointed out for the acquisition of initial syntactic structures (Serrat et al., 1994) dealt with in previous sections. Although children, in line with our predictions, initially produce purpose, causal, and coordinate clauses as dependent on preceding adult productions, the status of object and relative clauses is less clear in this respect. These structures are not only more frequently produced as independent than dependent complex sentences initially, but also show an increase in frequency as independent sentences in the final periods. This difference in behavior of object complement and relative clauses, on the one hand, and purpose, causal, and coordinate clauses, on the other, does not necessarily contradict our prediction. Rather, it follows from the different syntactic status and distribution of these constructions. Object complements and relative clauses syntactically modify a head or a nucleus: Object clauses are subcategorized by a given set of verbs, whereas relative clauses postmodify nouns. Purpose, causal, and coordi­ nate sentences are neither subcategorized nor modify a specific head category, but are peripheral clauses that add information to the whole proposition. Therefore, they can be formulated as an independent clause and be appended on a previous adult utterance that contains a main clause. Object and relative clauses, on the other hand, can only be produced as part of their main clause, inasmuch as they are required by or syntactically modify a nuclear category which, therefore, must be present. The lack of evidence for the emergence of conditional, manner, and tempo­ ral clauses as dependent on the conversational context is probably due to the

22

APARICI, SERRAT, CAPDEVILA, SERRA

fact that these sentences are the last to be acquired by almost all the children. The child at this later point in development has a more advanced level of knowledge about complex syntax and morphology as well as different level of semantic-lexical knowledge, so other types of strategies might be intervening with more strength than the scaffolding of adult utterances. In summary, the sequence of acquisition we have found is very similar— except for the case of temporal clauses—to that observed in other languages. In this respect, we want to emphasize the gradualness of the acquisition of complex constructions, starting with syntactically simple, specific structures used with a small range of connectives and particular verbs. These findings give support to the perspective that emphasizes gradual learning and progressive complexity and abstraction (Tomasello & Brooks, 1999). On the other hand, taking into account those studies that stress the importance of cognitive development in the acquisition of complex sentences (e.g., Bloom et al., 1980; Clancy et al., 1976), it seems that as a result of changes in cognitive capacities, the attention of children is directed toward those aspects of the input which for­ mally signal specific conceptual contents. Now, our results complement this proposal suggesting that in the progression toward higher syntactic complexity, children rely on the support of preceding adult productions. This is not to say that this strategy is necessary or sufficient because it is possible that children use different strategies depending on the type of interaction they are immersed in; however, we do think that they make use of the conversational context if it makes their task easier. It seems that children are analyzing both the language they receive as input and the linguistic knowledge they have, and they try to get closer to the model that will allow them to be more competent in the transmis­ sion of their intentions. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The study reported here has received financial support from DGICYT PB94­ 0886 and from a research grant of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Fi/94 1032). The authors would like to thank Aurora Bel, Carmela Perez, and Monica Sanz for their help on earlier versions of this chapter. Also, we would like to thank Ayhan Aksu-Koc for her helpful comments and suggestions on this chapter. REFERENCES

Aguado, G. (1988). Valo ration de la competencia morfosintactica en el nino de dos anos y medio [Assessment of morphosyntactic competence in children at age 2;6]. Infanciay Aprendizaje, 43, 73-96. Aksu, A. (1978). The acquisition of causal connectives in Turkish. Papers 6- Reports on Child Language Development, 15,129-139. Antelmi, D. (1996). Complex sentence acquisition in Italian: A case study. In C. E. Johnson & J. H. V. Gilbert (Eds.), Children's language, Vol. 9 (pp. 117-33). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Acquisition of Complex Sentences 23

Badia, A. (1994). Gramatica de la llengua catalana [Grammar of the Catalan language]. Barcelona: Enciclopedia Catalana. Barrena, A. (1994). Haur euskaldun elebakar baten menpeko perpausen jabekuntza-garapena [Development of subordinate clauses in a monolingual Basque child]. Tantak, 12,45-73. Barrera, L, & Fraca, L. (19 91). Psicolinguistica y desarrollo del espanol [Psycholinguistics and acqui­ sition of Spanish]. Caracas: Monte Avila Editores. Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: The acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Bloom, L. (1991). Language development from two to three. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Bloom, L., Lahey, M., Hood, L., Lifter, K., & Fiess, K. (1980). Complex sentences: Acquisition of syn­ tactic connectives and the semantic relations they encode. Journal of Child Language, 7,235-261. Bloom, L, Rispoli, M., Gartner, B., & Hafitz, J. (1989). Acquisition of complementation. Journal of Child Language,16,101-120. Bloom, L., Tackeff, J., & Lahey, M. (1984). Learning to in complement construction. Journal of Child Language, 11,391-406. Bowerman, M. (1979). The acquisition of complex sentences. In P. Fletcher & M. Carman (Eds.), Language acquisition (pp. 285-305). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Champaud, C., & Bassano, D. (1994). French concessive connectives and argumentation: An exper­ imental study in eight- to ten-year-old children. Journal of Child Language, 21, 415-438. Chomsky, C. (196 9). The acquisition of syntax in children from 5 to 10. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Clancy, P., Jacobsen, T., & Silva, M. (1976). The acquisition of conjunction: A cross-linguistic study. Papers 6- Reports on Child Language Development, 12,71-80. Clark, E. (1985). The acquisition of Romance, with special reference to French. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition: The data, Vol. i (pp. 687-782). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Clemente, R. (1982). Aproximacidn a la evolucion del lenguaje. Estudio de dos diferentes tipos de emi­ siones espontdneas y su relacion con la accion [An approach to language development. Study on two different types of spontaneous production and their relationship with the action]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Barcelona, Spain. Dale, P. S. (1976). Desarrollo del lenguaje. Un enfoque psicolinguistico [Language development. A psy­ cholinguistic approach]. Mexico: Trillas de Villiers, J., & de Villiers, P. A. (1985). The acquisition of English. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslin­ guistic study of language acquisition, Vol. i: The data (pp. 27-139). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Eisenberg, S., & Cairns, H. (1994). The development of infinitives from three to five. Journal of Child Language, 21,713-734. Fernandez, A. (1994). El aprendizaje de los morfemas verbales. Datos de un estudio longitudinal [Learning verbal morphemes. Data from a longitudinal study]. In S. L6pez-Ornat, A. Fernandez, P. Gallo, & S. Mariscal (Eds.), La adquisicidn de la lengua espanola (pp. 29-46). Madrid: Siglo XXI. Ferreiro, E., & Sinclair, H., (1971). Temporal relations in language. International Journal of Psychology, 6,39-47. Ferreiro, E., Othenin-Girard, C., Chipman, H., & Sinclair, H. (1976). How do children handle rela­ tive clauses? A study in comparative developmental psycholinguistics. Arxives de Psychologic, 44, 229-266. Garcia-Soto,X. R. (1996). Era unha vez un neno .. . Estudio da evolucidn da linguaxeen nenosgalegos-falantes [Once upon a time there was a boy . . . Study of language development in Gallician speaking children]. Santiago de Compostela: Sotelo Blanco. Gili-Gaya, S. (1972). Estudios de lenguaje infantil [Studies on child language]. Barcelona: Vox. Greenfield, P., & Smith, J. (1976). The semantics of communication in early language development. New York: Academic Press.

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Hernandez-Pina, F. (1984). Teoriaspsicosociolingutsticasy su aplicacidn a la adquisicion delespanol como lengua materna [Psychosociolinguistic theories and their application to the acquisition of Spanish as a first language]. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Jeremy, R. J. (1978). Use of coordinate sentences with the conjunction 'and' for describing temporal and locative relations between events. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 7(2), 135-150. Karmiloff-Smith, A. (19863). From meta-processes to conscious access. Cognition, 23, 95—148. Karmiloff-Smith, A. (i986b). Some fundamental aspects of language development after age 5. In P. Fletcher & M. Carman (Eds.), Language acquisition,2nd ed. (pp. 455-474). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Kim, Y. (1997). The acquisition of Korean. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 4 (pp. 335-443). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lees, R. B. (1960). Grammar of English nominalizations. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Lieven, £.(199 7). Variation in a crosslinguistic context. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition: Expanding the contexts, Vol.5 (pp. 199-263). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language (pp. 169-185). New York: Academic Press. L6pez-Ornat, S. (1999). La adquisici6n del lenguaje. Nuevas perspectivas. [Language acquisition. New perspectives]. In F. Cuetos & M. de Vega (Eds.), Psicolinguistica del Espanol. Madrid: Trotta. Lust, B. (1977). Conjunction reduction in child language.Journal of Child Language, 4,257-288. Lust, B., & Mervis, C. (1980). Development of coordination in the natural speech of young children. Journal of Child Language, 7, 279-304. MacWhinney, B. (1995). The CHILDES project: took for analyzing talk. Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. McCabe, A., & Peterson, C. (1985). A naturalistic study of the production of causal connectives by children. Journal of Child Language,12,145-159. Pandolfi, A. (1988). La sintaxis del nino en dos etapas de su desarrollo [Children's syntax in two stages of development]. Revista Intercontinental de Psicologia y Educacidn, 1(2), 185-203. P6rez-Pereira, M., & Castro, F. (1994, June). Syntactic development of Spanish blind children. Paper presented at the First Lisbon Meeting on Child Language, with Special Reference to Romance Languages, Lisbon, Portugal. Peterson, C. (1986). Semantic and pragmatic uses of'but'. Journal of Child Language,13,538-590. Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1987). The connective'and': Do older children use it less as they learn other connectives? Journal of Child Language, 14,375-381. Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1996). Parental scaffolding of context in children's narratives. In C. E. Johnson & J. H. V. Gilbert (Eds.), Children's language, Vol. 9 (pp. 183-196). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pine, J. (1994). The language of primary caregivers. In C. Gallaway & B. J. Richards (Eds.), Input and interaction in language acquisition (pp. 15-37). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Portillo, R. (19 9 4, April). El desarrollo lingiiistico posterior:nivel semdntico-sintdctico [Later linguis­ tic development: the syntactic-semantic level]. Paper presented at the XII Congreso Nacional de AESLA, Barcelona, Spain. Sebastian, E., & Slobin. D. I. (1994). Development of linguistic forms: Spanish. In R. Berman & D. I. Slobin (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study (pp. 239-284). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Serrat, E. (1997). Elproces de gramaticalitzacid en I'adquisicid del llenguatge: la categoria formal de verb [The grammaticalization process in language acquisition: The formal category of verb]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Girona, Spain. Serrat, E., Capdevila, M., & Serra, M. (1994, June). The interaction of functional categories and syn­ tax in the acquisition of Spanish and Catalan. Paper presented at the First Lisbon Meeting on Child Language, with Special Reference to Romance Languages, Lisbon, Portugal.

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Sinclair, H. (1967). Acquisition du langage et developpement de lapensee [Language acquisition and development of thought]. Paris: Dunod. Smoczynska, M. (1985). The acquisition of Polish. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. i: The data (pp. 595-686). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Snow, C. (1986). Conversations with children. In P. Fletcher & M. Carman (Eds.), Language acqui­ sition, 2nd ed. (pp. 69-89). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Stevenson, R. J., & Pollitt, C. (1987). The acquisition of temporal terms. Journal of Child Language, 14> 533-545Tomasello, M., & Brooks, P. J. (1999). Early syntactic development: A construction grammar ap­ proach. In M. D. Barrett (Ed.), The development of language (pp. 161-198). Hove, UK: Psychology Press. Tyack, D., & Gottsleben, R. (1986) Acquisition of complex sentences. Language,Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools, 17,160—174.

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Bilingual Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes: Ergativity in Basque Versus Accusativity in Spanish

MARGARETA ALMCREN

University of the Basque Country ANDONI BARRENA

University of Salamanca, Spain

The aim of this investigation is to demonstrate that bilingual children, acquiring two first languages at the same time, develop the two grammar systems separately and independently, from the moment morphological and syntactic elements first appear. Our data show the separation of the two codes by early bilinguals in balanced contact with both languages. Studies on the development of grammar systems in children who acquire two first languages in bilingual families have come to different conclusions. Volterra and Taeschner (1978), and Taeschner (1983), analyzed the produc­ tions of German-Italian bilinguals and stated that children go through an early phase where lexical elements from both languages form one single system. During a second phase, these lexical elements are differentiated according to each language, but it is only during the third stage that the separation of the syntactic rules take place. Redlinger and Park (1980), drew their data from studies on French- German, English-German and Spanish-German bilingual children aged 2 to 3. Like Volterra and Taeschner, the authors concluded that these children have one vocabulary and one syntax for both their languages at the beginning. Vocabulary mixing first, and subsequently syntax mixing, grow progressively less. Vihman (1985), who analyzed Estonian-English bilinguals, also supports the single-system hypothesis, and Vila and Cortes (1991), refer­ ring to Spanish-Catalan bilinguals, indicated the possibility of an early, very short period of only one grammar, which gives way to the process of grammat­ ical differentiation. Other authors, however, defend the separate development of the two languages by early bilinguals. Bergman (1976), after observing the linguistic 27

28

ALMGREN, BARRENA

development of her own daughter Mary, a Spanish-English bilingual, from ages 10 to 27 months, concluded that each language develops independently in the bilingual child, parallel to the process followed by monolinguals. Any kind of interference is due to a linguistic environment in which the child's interlocu­ tors do not keep the two languages clearly separated. Padilla and Liebman (1975) analyzed Spanish-English bilinguals aged 155 to 252 and found their de­ velopment to be identical to that of monolinguals. These children differentiated the two systems from the beginning, especially on a phonological level. Lindholm and Padilla (19783, i978b) and Lindholm (1980), also found Spanish-English bilingual children able to separate their two linguistic systems from the very start, emphasizing that the idea of a hybrid mixture of the two languages must be rejected. De Houwer (1991), studying English-Dutch bilingual acquisition, also supported the separate development hypothesis. Meisel (1989), who analyzed the speech of German-French bilinguals, claimed an early separation of the two systems, without a period of confusion or temporary mixing. Both De Houwer (1995) and Meisel rejected the three-stage model proposed by Volterra and Taeschner. Meisel (1994), studying the acquisition of negation by Basque-Spanish bilinguals and monolinguals, insisted on the separate develop­ ment model. Barrena (1997), analyzing the acquisition of Det Phrase by Basque and Spanish bilinguals and monolinguals, agreed with the hypothesis sustained by De Houwer and Meisel. One of the difficulties encountered when trying to evaluate similarities and differences in viewpoints on this matter is the varying aspects of opinion. Some of them deal almost exclusively with lexical components, an aspect we have disregarded in the present study. Another difficulty is the terminological confusion. Meisel and Mahlau (1988), suggested four different definitions to distinguish different phenomena when dealing with questions like "one system," "mixing," "interference," etc.: language separation, language fusion, code-mixing and code-switching. The first two terms refer to the child's grammatical competence, whereas code-mixing, and code-switching deal with the bilingual's pragmatic competence. In this chapter, we focus our attention on language separation or fusion as a grammatical phenomenon. A frequently mentioned principle in studies on bilingual acquisition is the so-called "loi de Grammont," defined by Ronjat (1913) as the unepersonne, une langue principle. Ronjat found that in his French-German bilingual son, at an age ranging from 13 months to 4:10, no mixing occurred, because French was strictly linked to himself and German to the child's mother. Oksaar (1971), studying her son Sven, an Estonian-Swedish bilingual, also supported the fact that the different languages are linked to different people. One well-known case study is that of "Eve" (Tabouret-Keller, 1969). This little girl, growing up in an environment (Alsace) where French and German patois are freely mixed by adults speakers, tended to reproduce the same pattern. At a very

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

29

early age Eve had few equivalents in vocabulary and word classes and she also became aware that she was speaking two languages relatively late. Arnberg (1981) pointed out the importance of contacts, not only with one person in each language, but also with groups of native speakers, if we want to attain balanced bilingualism. CORPUS

The Basque-Spanish bilingual child referred to in our study has all the possible advantages. He was born into a bilingual family where the principle "one person, one language" has been strictly maintained, so that he always interacts in Basque with his mother and in Spanish with his father. He is also surrounded by adult native speakers of both languages who take care not to mix languages or to code-switch when in contact with him. Our data are drawn from the HEGEHJ (Haur euskara gaztelania elebidunen hizkuntz jabekuntza—Basque-Spanish Bilingual Children's Language Acquisi­ tion) and BUSDE (Baskisch und Spanisch doppelter Erstspracherwerfy project, carried out by the Universities of the Basque Country and Hamburg (Mahlau, 1994). As is usual in these cases, several children were videotaped fortnightly in sessions of 30-40 minutes in each language. At least one of the parents generally took part in these sessions of natural play situations at home. For our purpose, we used 27 Basque and 25 Spanish transcripts, ranging from the age i;6 to 350, with MLUs 1.03 to 4.00 and 1.17 to 4.12, respectively. As a contrast, data from 26 transcripts of the productions of a Basque-speaking monolingual child, part of the same project, are at hand. All the utterances in Basque have been translated into the standard variety (without morphological alterations), because both children have acquired the Bizcayan dialect. Our data from the productions in Spanish are contrasted with those presented in the studies on acquisition by Spanish monolinguals carried out by Hernandez Pina (1984), Lopez Ornat (1992,1994) and Aguirre (1995). LANGUAGES AND STRUCTURES ANALYZED

Although occupying the same geographical space in Northern Spain, Basque and Spanish have notably different typologies. One of them is the manner in which the three basic syntactic relations S (intransitive subject), A (transitive subject) and O (object) are marked (Dixon, 1994). In the so-called accusative languages transitive and intransitive subjects group together under the nomi­ native case, whereas the objects are assigned the accusative case (Pinker, 1994). In ergative languages, on the contrary, intransitive subjects and objects are assigned the absolutive case, different from the ergative case marking of the transitive subjects (Table 2.1).

30

ALMGREN, BARRENA

TABLE 2.1

Marking of the Basic Syntactic Relations Accusative Languages

Ergative Languages

nominative nominative accusative

absolutive ergative absolutive

Intransitive subjects (S) Transitive subjects (A) Objects (O)

Ergative and Absolutive Case Marking on Subjects and Objects Basque is morphologically ergative (Ortiz de Urbina, 1988). Subjects of intran­ sitive verbs and direct objects are 0-marked: the absolutive case marking. (1-3). Subjects of transitive verbs, on the other hand, take the ergative case, k- marked. (2-3).

(1)

gizon-a-0 etorr-i man-detl-abs come-asp 'the man has come'

d-a aux:S3S+tense-root

(2) gizon-a-k txakurr-a-0 ekarr-i man-det-erg dog-det-abs bring-asp 'the man has brought the dog1

d-u-0 aux:O3s+tense-root-S3s

(3) txakurr-a-k gizon-a-0 harrapa-tu d-u-0 dog-det-erg man-det-abs catch-asp aux:O3s+tense-root-S3s 'the dog has caught the man'

Ergativity in the Basque Verb But ergativity is also reflected in verbal inflection, because verbs agree with sub­ jects and also with direct and indirect objects. In verbal inflection, intransitive subjects and direct objects are marked by prefixes (4-7), transitive subjects by suffixes (6-7), and indirect objects by infixes (7). Furthermore, plural transitive subjects and direct objects are marked by a verbal inflectional infix (7). (4) ni-0 n-a-tor I-abs Sis-pres-come 'I come'

i Det(erminant), abs(olutive), erg(ative), nom(inative), asp(ect), perf(ective), fut(ure), auxiliary), s(ingular), pl(ural), S(ubject), O(bject), I(ndirect object), loc(ative), ablat(ive), imp(erative)....

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

31

(5) gizon-a-0 d-a-tor man-det-abs Sss-pres-come 'the man comes' (6) zu-k ni-0 ekarr-i n-a-u-zu you-erg I-abs bring-perf Ois-pres-root-S2s 'you have brought/taken me here' (7) zu-k gu-ri opariak-0 ekarr-i you-erg we-dat gifts-abs bring-perf 'you have brought us (so me) gifts'

d-i-zki-gu-zu O3s-root-Opl-Iipl-S2s

Ergativity is always marked on arguments. Verbal inflection, however, displays a split in ergative marking in past tense (Fernandez, 1997). Transitive subjects are marked by absolutive prefixes when objects are third person singular or plural (8). (8)

ekarri n-0-u-en/n-it-u-en bring isS-(-Opl)-root-tense/isS-Op-root-tense 'I brought it/them'

Nominative and Accusative Marking on Subjects and on Objects in Spanish In Spanish, on the contrary, transitive and intransitive subjects are assigned the nominative case (9-10), whereas direct objects are accusative marked (n), either by the preposition a or by their placement in the sentence, generally postverbal (Fernandez & Anula, 1995). Also datives are marked by the preposition a. Spanish has subject-verb agreement, although direct and indirect objects can also be expressed by clitics (12). (9) Juan ve-0 John-nom see-S3s John sees Mary

a Maria accus-Mary

(10) Maria viene-0 Mary-nom come-S3S Mary comes (n) Juan trae-0 unpdjaro John-nom bring-S3s a bird John brings a bird to Mary

a Maria to Mary

(12) (Juan) se (John-nom) 135 John brings it to her/him

trae-0 bring-$3s

lo O^s

32

ALMCREN, BARRENA

Only utterances containing verbal elements will be analyzed in the present study. In Basque and in Spanish subjects can be silenced, objects can be omitted in Basque and verbs can appear in nonpersonal forms. Consequently, the number of contexts in which argument-marking and verbal agreement are analyzed can vary. HYPOTHESIS

Our central hypothesis is the separate and differentiated development of the grammar structures of the two first languages that are being acquired by the bilingual child. As to ergativity/accusativity, we expect to show that the bilingual child develops the ergative system in the same way as the monolingual, and differently from Spanish accusativity, which we expect to be acquired following the pattern of Spanish-speaking monolingual children. Thus, the bilingual child will distinguish Basque intransitive subjects and objects on one hand, and transitive subjects on the other, in arguments as well as in finite verb forms. Intransitive subjects and objects will bear the absolutive case and agree with verbs by the system of prefixes. Transitive subjects will be ergative case marked and agree with the verb by suffixes. In Spanish, on the contrary, the accusative system will give an identical treatment to intransitive and transitive subjects, distinguishing them from the objects. DATA

Acquisition and Development of the Basque Ergative System Subjects of Basque Intransitive Verbs. The speech of the two children referred to in this chapter lacks functional categories and case marking dur­ ing the early two-word phase (Barrena, 1995; Ezeizabarrena, 1996). Case marking appears toward the age of 250. Intransitive subjects appear in the absolutive case in the productions of both children (13-14). We have recorded more than 300 examples in the bilingual child's speech from the age of i;io up to 350, only one of which contains an intransitive subject marked ergatively (Table 2.2). (13) ipuin-a-0 han dago book-det-abs there be:S3S 'the book is over there'

(M i;io)

(14) Ana-0

(M 250)

etorr-i

da

Anne-abs come-asp p aux:S3$ 3s

Anne has come'

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

33

T A B L E 2.2

Absolutive Case Marking on Arguments Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual

Age

Absolutive

i;io i;n 2;o 251 252

9 14 18 3 8 14

253 2J4 255 2;6 257 2;8 2:9 2510

Ergative

44 19 33 32 12 14 1O

2;n

29

3;o

45

i

Total

310

i

During the same period, out of 400 examples, there are only two mistakes in the monolingual child's speech. Subjects of Basque Transitive Verbs. The acquisition of ergative case mark­ ing on arguments is described for each child. During the initial period, simultaneous with the two-word phase and the lack of functional categories, neither of the children produces ergative case marking or any other case mark­ ing (Barrefia, 1995). We have taken into account the contexts containing finite or nonfinite verb forms where an argument should be marked ergatively, taking note of the children's behavior (Table 2.3). The first ergative marks appear at the age of 250 for the monolingual child and for 252 for the bilingual. The monolingual child does not yet use the func­ tional category Infl, but seems to have developed Det. The bilingual child, on the contrary, does use Infl and Det (Barrefia, 1995). Following Meisel (1990), it can be considered that ergative case-marking is productive from now on, since it is attached to different roots (15-16). (15) ni-k

d-a-uka-t

hemen

I-erg Oss-tense-have got-Sis here 'I have got (it) here'

(M 254)

34

ALMCREN, BARRENA

TABLE 2-3

Ergative Case Marking on Arguments Oitz: Basque Monolingual

Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual

Age

Age

Total

-0

To i;n 2;o 2;i 252 253

6 9

6 6

8

2

17 8 42 28 36 11

12

5 8

i;io 2;o 251 2:2 253

3 1

39

254

27 36

255 2;6 257 2;8

2:4 2J5

256 257 2;8 2^9

2;io 2J11

1

33 16 37 16

350

25

Total

276

25

+erg

3 6

10

33 16 37 16

2510 2;ii

25

3:0

251

Total

2,9

Total

-0

i

1

2

2

2

2

4 9 9 3 11 8 11 19 8

3 9 3 2 1

5

21

+erg

i 6 3 9 7 11 19 3 21

31

i

30

139

29

no

(16) aitatxo-k har-tu d-u-0 (M,2;07) Daddy-erg take-asp aux:O3s-root-S3S 'Daddy has taken it' Once the development of morphology has been initiated, some transitive subjects still appear without case marking. Apparently, they could be consid­ ered absolutives (0-marked in Basque), but they can of course also be taken as nonmarked arguments (17). (17) ni(k) sartu-ko d-u-t (M, 256) I(erg) outin-asp aux:O3S-root-Sis Til put (it) in'

These unmarked subjects even coincide formally with the nonmarked structures these children use during the premorphological phase. So, there is no reason to believe they are mistakes in the sense of absolutive case marking where ergative is required. More probably, the children still use nonmarked structures, in spite of having reached a phase of morphological development. The monolingual child stabilizes his use of ergative case marking (correction close to 90%) 4 or 5 months after its first appearance, toward the age of 255. His use of the functional category Infl in subject-verb agreement dates from 253.

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

35

The bilingual child consolidates his use of ergative 6 months after the initiation, towards 2;8, having acquired subject-verb agreement at the age of 2;o. From this moment on, (i.e., 255 or 258, ergative case marking on arguments is correct). It is also regular (Meisel, 1990; Ezeizabarrena, 1996), because it appears in most of the contexts required. Consequently, we can affirm that the notion of ergativity, at least in arguments, is similar to that of adults. We found very few examples of mistaken ergative marking on intransitive subjects, some of them after the age of 3,0 (18). Altogether, mistakes in absolutive/ergative case marking do not reach even 1%. On some occasions, the children correct their own errors (19). (18) ni-k ibil-i n-aiz (M,3;o) I-erg walk-asp aux:Sis-root 'I have walked' (19) ba ni-k ni-0 etorr-i n-aiz zu-regana eta... well I-erg I-abs come-perf aux:Sis tu-ablat and 'well, I have come up to you and....'

(0,257)

The two children show a similar development. We can thus affirm that ergative marking on the arguments is acquired in the same way by them both. Objects in Basque. We counted 439 objects with absolutive marking and 10 with dative marking in the monolingual child's speech, from the point when case marking appears (Table 2.4). In the bilingual's speech we counted 279 direct objects with absolutive case marking (20-21) and 3 with dative (22). There are no examples of ergative case marking. (20) garaje-a-0 tapa-tu garage-det-abs cover-perf 'we have covered the garage' (21) ba-d-a-uka-0 yes-O3s-tense-have-S3s '(s)he has got the car' (22) ez ikutu nor touch-imp 'don't touch me!'

ni-ri! I-dat

d-u-gu (M, 254) aux:O3s-root-Sipl

kotxe-a-0 car-det-abs

(M,2;2)

(M, 256)

According to the adult norm, some Basque verbs that govern one single object apply dative to it. The children follow this adult norm, extending it to certain types of verbs, principally when the argument governed corresponds to first or second person (23).

36

ALMCREN, BARRENA

T A B L E 2-4

Case Marking on Direct Arguments Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual

Age

Absolutive

i;9

6

i;io i;n 250 2;i 2;2 253 254

3 l

255 256

2;7 258 259 2510 2511

3:0 Total

Dative (norm)

Dative (no norm)

17 6 4 21

43 18

i

19 23 17 14 15 33 42 276

i i 0

3

(23) bflwfl £ero ni-kjo egin behar d-i-o-t Lagun-i (M, 2;n) but then I-erg hit asp O3s-root-l3s-Sis Lagun(dog)-dat 'but then I'll hit (him) Lagun' Word order does not mark the argument as direct object, since its position is pre- as well as postverbal (Table 2.5), 46% and 54% respectively. Marking of Intransitive Subjects in Verbal Inflection. All intransitive subjects are reflected in verbal inflection by use of prefixes, according to norm (24-26). In this case the examples are more than 600 (50,18, 650, 6, o, and 70 for each person) of verbal forms which agree with the absolutive prefixes in the monolingual's speech and more than 500 (20, 4, 564, 6, o, and 32 for each person) in the bilingual's (Table 2.6). (24) ba-n-oa (M, 2504) yes-Sis-root go 'I am going'

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

37

TABLE 2.5

The Order on Direct Arguments Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual

Age

Total

i;io

3 i

2

17 6

7 3 i

1511 2;o 251 252 2:3 254 2J5 2;6 2:7 2;8

4

Preverb

21

10

20

26 8 7

23

10

17

7 8

14

2510

15

2;n 350

34 43

Total

279

i

i

43 18

2J9

Postverfr

7 13 19 129 46%

10 3 3 11 17 10 13 13 10

6 8 21 24 150

54%

(25) hau ba-d-oa (M,2;4) this yes-S3s-root go 'this is going' (26) ba-g-oa-z (M,2;4) yes-Sipl-root go-Spl 'we are going' As we expected, we did not find a single intransitive subject with transitive suffixed marking in verbal inflection. Marking of Transitive Subjects in Verbal Inflection. Transitive ergative subjects are always marked according to norm in verbal inflection by use of different suffixes for each grammatical person (26-28). (26) non ipiniko d-u-gu kotxe-a-0? where put-rut O3s-root-Sipl car-det-abs 'where shall we put the car?'

(M, 254)

38

ALMCREN, BARRENA

TABLE 2.6

Marking of Subjects of Intransitive Verbs Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual Age n-

15

25

35

Ipl

2pl

z-

d­

g- +pl

z-+ pi

d- + pi

26 15 18

i;9 i;io i;n 250 251 2;2 2;2

3PI

i

77

1

7 31 50

253

2O

2

254

62

3

3

255 2;6 2!7 258 259 2J1O

2;n

3;o Total

36

l l 1 l l

27

2

28

2

3 4 l

1

2

12

41

3

26 11

5 6

2

32

2

53

1

20

4

564

6

(27) h(ur)a ez d-u-t that neg Oss-root-Sis 'I haven't taken that'

1

0

32

har-tu (M, 23) take-asp

(28) zu(K) nahi d-u-zu esne-a-0? you-erg want-asp O3s-root-S2s milk-det-abs 'do you want (some) milk?'

(M, 254)

We found more than 500 examples (250,64,180,42, i, and 22 for each per­ son) of verbal forms that agree with ergative suffixes in the monolingual child's speech and more than 400 (205, 25,157, 57, o, and 12 for each person) in the bilingual's (Table 2.7). We did not find a single transitive subject with intransi­ tive marking in verbal inflection. Marking of Direct Objects in Verbal Inflection. In verbal inflection, third person singular and plural objects are marked with absolutive prefixes. There are

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

39

TABLE 2.7

Marking of subjects of transitive verbs Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual Age

IS

2S

-t

-ZU

U9 i;io 1511 250 251 252 2:3 254

35 -0

Ipl

2pl

-gu

-zue

-te

9 3

1

17

3

17 6

2

6

1

9 24 18

i

5 3

19 5

25 16

2

2J7

1

17 5 4 6

2;8

14

2

10

3

259

22

1

2J10

13

1

12

2;n

28

16

1

3;o

29

3 5

7 l 11 18

11

3

205

25

157

57

2:5 2;6

Total

2

2

3 6 i 1

2

2

0

12

580 examples in the monolingual child's speech and 450 in the bilingual's (Table 2.8 ). They can also be marked by infixes corresponding to first, second, or a few third person dative objects (15 in the monolingual child's speech and 7 in the bilingual's). In adult speech a few verbs require dative infix marking on their sole object. The children follow this norm (10 out of 15 utterances in the mono­ lingual child's speech and 3 out of 7 in the bilingual's), but both of them also extend it to other verbs requiring absolutive marking in adult speech (29). There are no examples of ergative suffix marking on objects. (29) ni-ri haginka egin I-dat bite asp 'it has bitten me'

d-i-t-0 (M, 259) O3s-root-hs-S3s

Ergative Morphology on Past Tense Verb Forms. As already mentioned, Basque displays an ergative split in some past tense forms, which are marked accusatively. Up to the age of 350, the monolingual child produces 53 finite verb forms in past tense, and the bilingual 26. Out of these past tense forms, 21 versus 16 correspond to transitive verbs with third person objects (Table 2.9). In the

40

ALMGREN, BARRENA

T A B L E 2.8

Marking of Objects in the Basque verb Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual Age n­

is z-

25

35

Ipl

2pl

d­

g-+pl

z-+pl

d-+pl

i;9

9

i;io

4 17

i;n 250 251 252

21

8 7 33 48

2:3 2:4

i

27 34 25 30

255 2;6 257 2;8 259 2510 2511

i i

32 26 59 66

3;o Total

3P/

0

0

447

0

0

3

production of these forms, both children show an ambiguous strategy. Some of them are produced according to the adult norm, reflecting the ergative split with accusative marking. The monolingual child shows this strategy in 8 exam­ ples out of 26 (30), whereas the bilingual does in 8 out of 16 (31). But there are also examples of forms created by the children, adding the past tense morpheme -(e}n to the present forms. The monolingual child does this in 18 cases out of 26 (32), whereas there are 8 examples out of 16 in the monolingual child's speech (33). (30) eta euk-i n-u-en txapel-a-0 and have-perf Sis-root-past (C>3S=0) beret-det-abs 'and I had got a beret'

(O,2;io)

(31) bai, gose-a-0 eduki-ko z-u-en (M,2;n) yes, hunger-det-abs have-fut S3S-root-past (O3S=0) 'yes, he would be hungry'

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

41

TABLE 2-9

Marking of Past Tense Forms in Basque Oitz: Basque Monolingual

Age

Intransitives (norm)

Transitives (norm-accus.")

Transift'ves (new erg.)

i

2:7

i

2;8 2:9 2510 2;n

5 7 14 5

2

3 3

2

6

2

1

3;o

3

Mz'fce/:• Basque-Spanish Bilingual 2;io 2;n

2 -

4 i

2

3:0

8

3

5

1

(32) ni-k hemen egi-n d-u-t-en lo (0,259) I-erg here do-perf O3s-root-Sis-past sleep 'I used to sleep here' (33) eta beste-an ni-k ipin-i d-u-da-n atzo (M, 2;n) andother-loc I-erg put-asp O3s-root-Sis-tense yesterday 'and I put (it) in the other one yesterday' Acquisition and Development of the Spanish Accusative System Subjects of Intransitive and Transitive Verbs. The transitive and intransitive subject arguments produced by the bilingual child are morphologically unmarked, following the Spanish standard. Neither does word order identify them as subjects or distinguish them as transitive or intransitive (34-35). We have observed 310 subject arguments from i;io to 3500. Their distribution is as follows: 30% are intransitive preverbal, 33% intransitive and postverbal, 29% transitive preverbal, and 8% transitive postverbal (Table 2.10). (34) me met-o reflex getin-S3s Til get in there'

yo I

(35) yo h-e tirado I have-S3s thrown 'I have thrown a marker'

(M, 251)

una a

pintura(M,251) marker

42

ALMGREN, BARRENA

TABLE 2.TO

Order in Intransitive and Transitive Subjects

Age

Preverbal intr. subj.

Postverbal intr. subj.

Preverbal tr. subj.

2

i;io i;n

4

i 8

2

250

4

2

3

2;i 252

2

13

4 5

2J3

7 7

3 8

2;6

12

6

2:7 258

10

2J9

5

13 4 5

2;io 2;n 3;o

10

10

18

8

11

5

13 6

Total

94

101

89

2:4

13

2

255

2

Postverbal tr. subj.

i i i 2 2

8

i

9 4 6

2

5 7 8 8

2

i

1 7 4 2 26

Monolingual Spanish children also produce preverbal and postverbal subjects (36-37), according to the data collected by Aguirre (1995). (36)70 pint-o (Aguirre, 1995, Al, 254) I paint-Sis 'I paint' (37) pint-o yo paint-Sis I T paint'

(Aguirre, 1995,Al, 255)

Marking of Objects. The direct objects produced by the child are marked by their position in the sentence. In Spanish, the accusative does not always bear its morphological mark: the preposition a. In many contexts, it is marked by word order: fundamentally (S)VO. Analyzing almost 300 object arguments up to the age of 350 (Table 2.11), we found that 87% are postverbal, according to Spanish norm (38), 6% have a preverbal theme position (39)> and 4% are preverbal wfo-questions (40). Among the few remaining examples we found only one SOV sentence that is not correct in Spanish, possibly transferred from Basque (41), and one OV sentence, also possibly transferred (42). The accusative preposition a appears at 2510 and constitutes 1% of the examples.

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

43

T A B L E 2.11 Marking of Objects According to Word Order or Preposition Age

Total

(S)VO

O(ld)V(S)wh quest. (S)whV(S)

159

i

i

i;n 2;o 251 252

3 4 17 11

3 4 15

2:3 254

19

15

12

12

2J5

3 18 28

17

l

25

2

1

15 18

11 15

l

4 l

36 51 27

32

2;6 257 2;8 2:9 2;io 2;n

3:0 Total

263

VSO

OV

i

10

SOV

prep, a

i 1

3

i

3

1

41

7

24

2

228 86.7%

16 6.1%

(38) quita el cache remove-imp the car 'remove the car'

l

1

l

l

1

10 3.8%

5 1.9%

l 0.4%

(M, i;n)

(39) esto lo vamosadar alasgallina-s this it root-Sipl give-fut to the hen-pi 'this we will give (it) to the hens' (40) que hashecho? (M, 253) what 825 do-asp 'what have you done?' (41) yo esto llev-o (M, 259) I this bring-Sis 'I bring this' (42) cuchillo toma knife take-imp 'take the knife'

1 2

(M, 251)

(M, 2;n)

12 0.4%

0.8%

44

ALMCREN, BARRENA

Monolingual Spanish children principally produce objects according with the SVO order (43), or preverbal objects, according with the norm, in theme position (44), or in WH questions (45). But sometimes, at very early ages, like our bilingual, these children produce preverbal objects too (46-47). The sole OV production (42) can't be related with certainty to the Basque structure, since monolingual Spanish children use the same order. Lopez Ornat (1992) has also found that Spanish speaking monolinguals frequently produce the OV order at very early ages (18 to 24 months). (43) nene come-0 uvas (Hernandez Pina, 1984, Ra,2;i) baby eat-S3s grape-pi 'baby eats grapes' (44) lo hamojado Roxana it 835 make-asp wet Roxana 'Roxana has made it wet'

(Aguirre, 1995, Ma, 250)

(45) ique tiene-0 ese? what have-$3S that 'what has that one got?'

(Aguirre, 1995, An, 2:3)

(46) colilla quita fag take-imp away 'take away the fag'

(Aguirre, 1995, Ma, 157)?

(47) Safas romp-es (HernandezPina, 1984, Ra, 251) glasses break-82 s 'you break the glasses'

Marking of Subjects with Verbal Inflection. We counted almost 1,000 examples of verbal inflection from the first distinctions of first and third person up to the age of 350 (Table 2.12). Transitive and intransitive subjects are always represented by the same verbal suffixes (48-49). (48) quier-o jugar want-Sis play 'I want to play' (49) no jueg-o neg play-Sis 'I don't play'

(M, 254)

(M,2;4)

Clitics in Spanish Verbs. The child starts producing clitic objects in verbal inflection at the age of 252. Spanish in the Basque Country is leista (indirect clitics for direct clitics; Fernandez Ordonez, 1994) and allows the omission of

2

Acquisition and Separation of Linguistic Codes

45

TABLE 2.12

Marking of Subjects in the Spanish Verb Mikel: Basque-Spanish Bilingual IS -0

25

-as

i;9 i;io i;n 2;o 2;i 252 2:3

2:4 255 2;6 257 258 259 2510 2;n

3:0 Total

3s -0

Ipl -amos

2pl -ais

3PI -an

9

3 7 5 17

13 40

i?

3

21 38

20

i i

29

29

2

27

35 14 23 43 13

2

7

44 5 38 60

21

4

30 32

19 45 31

12

39 52

10

5

33

7

3 8 3

325

42

510

63

24

2 2

5

6 i 2

3

13

3

3 4 14

2

clitic objects (Landa, 1993). The bilingual child often omits clitic objects in the same way as the adults surrounding him do. Clitic objects are used from the age of 252 in 64% of the 150 utterances analyzed. Due to leismo, dative clitics are used to mark direct objects in half a dozen utterances. The data from the productions of this bilingual child agree with those gathered from Spanish monolingual children (Aguirre, 1995; Hernandez Pina, 1984). Lopez Ornat (1994) observed that Spanish monolinguals develop the use of clitics between 25 and 30 months of age, parallel to the acquisition of imperative negative forms. CONCLUSIONS

The data offered in this chapter seem to confirm the hypothesis that the gram­ matical codes of the two languages are acquired separately, at least as indexed by ergativity in Basque and accusativity in Spanish. The process reflected in the productions of our bilingual child, in balanced contact with two languages from birth, gives us extensive evidence in support of this conclusion. Very briefly, we would summarize the results as follows:

46

ALMGREN, BARRENA

1. The bilingual child distinguishes intransitive (absolutive) and transitive (ergative) subjects in Basque, in case marking as well as by prefix and suffix marking in verbal inflection. This differentiation is already present when syntactic subjects and verbal inflection start being produced. The steps taken by the monolingual Basque child are identical. 2. In the bilingual child's productions in Spanish, transitive and intransitive subjects are not distinguished morphologically, as both take nominative case marking. In verbal inflection they are both represented by the same suffixes. The process is similar in Spanish monolingual children. 3. Subjects and objects are morphologically differentiated in Spanish, as object arguments are accusative case marked (by their placement in the sentence and, less frequently, by the preposition a). In verbal inflection this distinction is confirmed by the use of clitics coindexed with the objects. The Spanish monolingual children from other studies referred to in this chapter show the same tendency. 4. In Basque, intransitive subjects and objects are treated in the same fashion, maintaining the absolutive case marking on arguments and in verbal inflectional prefixes. This was true for the bilingual child and the Basque monolingual. A small number of dative-marked argument objects (1.2%) and an equally small number of infixes (1.5%) instead of prefixes or zero marking in verbal inflection are phenomena found in both children's productions. This double marking is distributed as follows: Third person argument objects generally bear absolutive marking, whereas first and second person objects take on dative mark­ ing. There is no difference between the bilingual and the monolingual in this case. We can add that it is also a widespread phenomenon in older Basque speakers. 5. We would also like to point out the creation of new past tense forms by both chil­ dren, maintaining the ergative marking corresponding to present tense: absolutive prefixes, dative infixes, and ergative suffixes. As we have already mentioned, past tense forms in Basque follow an accusative pattern in adult speech , using subject prefixes, when the object is third person. Because this phenomenon of child-generated new Basque forms cannot be attributed to interference from Spanish structures, we believe it can been taken as a reaffirmation of the acquisition of the notion of ergativity in Basque. It also shows, of course, that some productions in early child language are not determined by adult input, but seem to be proper creations. 6. The process of bilingual acquisition observed for one child by us follows the same pattern as that of the Basque-speaking monolingual child in our study on one hand, and also that of Spanish monolinguals analyzed by Aguirre (1995), Hernandez Pina (1984), and L6pez Ornat (1992,1994)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We want to thank Xabier Artiagoitia, Maria Jose Ezeizabarrena, Jesus Fernandez, Itziar Idiazabal, Keith Nelson, Miguel Perez, and Juanjo Zubiri for their helpful comments on the first version of this chapter.

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47

REFERENCES

Aguirre, C. (1995). La adquisicidn de las categorias gramaticales del espanol [The acquisition of the grammatical categories in Spanish]. Unpublished doctorcal dissertation, Universidad Autdnoma de Madrid. Arnberg, L. (1981). Early childhood bilingualism in the mixed-lingual family. Linkoeping Studies in Education Dissertations, 14. Linkoeping University, Sweden. Barrena, A. (1995). Gramatikaren jabekuntza-garapena eta haur euskaldunak [The acquisition-development of grammar and Basque-speaking children]. Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del Pais Vasco. Barrena, A. (1997). Desarrollo diferenciado de sistemas gramaticales en un nino vasco-espanol bil­ ingiie [Differentiated development of grammar systems in a Basque-Spanish bilingual child]. In W. R. Glass & A. T. Perez-Leroux (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on the acquisition of Spanish (pp. 55-74). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Bergman, C. R. (1976). Interference vs. independent development in infant bilingualism. In G. D. Keller, R. V. Teschner, & S. Viera (Eds.), Bilingualism in the Bicentennial and beyond (pp. 86-96). New York: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingiie. De Houwer, A. (1991). The acquisition of two languages from birth: A case study. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. De Houwer, A. (1995). Bilingual language acquisition. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (Eds.), The handbook of child language (pp. 219-250). London: Blackwell. Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Ezeizabarrena, M. J. (1996). Adquisicidn de la morfologia verbal en euskera y castellano por ninos bilingues [The Acquisition of verbal morphology in Basque and Spanish by bilingual children]. Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del Pais Vasco. Fernandez, B. (1997). Egitturazko Kasuaren Erkaketa Euskaraz [Comparison of the Structural case in Basque]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Basque Country. Fernandez, L. M., & Anula R. A. (1995). Sintaxis y cognicidn. Introduccidn al conocimiento, elproce­ samiento y los deficits sintdcticos [Syntax and cognition. Introduction to knowledge, processing and syntactic deficits]. Madrid: Sintesis. Fernandez Ordonez, I. (1994). Isoglosas internas del castellano. El sistema referencial del pronombre atono de tercera persona [The referential system of third person clitics]. Revista de Filologia Espanola, LXXIV, 71-125. Hernandez Pina, F. (1984). Teorias psicosociolinguisticas y su aplicacidn al espanol como lengua materna [Psycho sociolinguistic theories and their application to Spanish as a first language]. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Landa, A. (1993). Los objetos nulos determinados del espanol del Pais Vasco [Determined null sub­ jects in the variety of Spanish spoken in the Basque country]. Linguistica (ALFAL), 5,131-146. Lindholm, K. (1980). Bilingual children: Some interpretations of cognitive and linguistic develop­ ment. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language. Vol. 2: (pp. 215-266). New York: Gardner Press. Lindholm, K., & Padilla, A. (19783). Child bilingualism: Report on language mixing, switching and translations. Linguistics,211,23-44. Lindholm, K., & Padilla, A. (i978b). Language mixing in bilingual children. Journal of Child Language, 5,3 27-335. Lopez Ornat, S. (1992). Sobre la gramaticalizaci6n. Prototipos para la adquisicidn de la concordan­ cia verbo-sujeto: datos de lengua espanola en ninos de 1,6 a 3,6 [On grammaticalization. Prototypes for the acquisition of subject-verb agreement: Data from Spanish in children aged 1,6 to 7,6]. Cognitiva,4 (i), 49-74. L6pez Ornat, S. (1994). La adquisicidn de la lengua espanola [The Acquisition of Spanish]. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Mahlau, A. (1994). El proyecto BUSDE: Corpus y metodologia [The BUSDE project. Corpus and methodology]. In J. M. Meisel (Ed.), La adquisicidn del vasco y del castellano en ninos bilingues (pp. 21-34). Frankfurt: Vervuert-Iberoamericana.

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Meisel, J. (1989). Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K. Hyltenstan & L. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism across the lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity and loss (pp. 13-40). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Meisel, J. (1990). Inflection: Subjects and subject-verb agreement in early child language. In J. Meisel (Ed.), Two first languages. Early grammatical development in bilingual children (pp. 237-300). Dordrecht: Foris. Meisel J. (1994). La adquisicion de la negacion en euskera y espanol. Sobre la separaci6n temprana de sistemas gramaticales por ninos bilingiies [The acquisition of negation in Basque and Spanish. On early differentiation of grammar systms by bilingual children]. In J. Meisel (Ed.), La adquisicidn del vasco y del espanol en ninos bilingiies (pp. 151—180). Frankfurt: VervuertIberoamericana. Meisel, J., & Mahlau, A. (1988). La adquisicion simultanea de dos primeras lenguas. Discusi6n gen­ eral e implicaciones para el estudio del bilingiiismo en Euskadi [The simultaneous acquisition of two first languages. General discussion and implications for the study of bilingulaism in the Basque Country]. In Euskara Biltzarrea—Congreso de la Lengua Vasca HI (pp. 91-120). San Sebastian: Servicio de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco. Oksaar, E. (1971). Zum Spracherwerbs des Kindes in Zweisprachiger Umgebung [On language acquisition by children in a bilingual environment]. Folia Linguistica, 4,330-358. Ortiz de Urbina, J. (1988). Some parameters in the grammar of Basque. Foris: Dordrecht. Padilla, A. M., & Liebman, S. (1975). Language acquisition in the bilingual child. Bilingual Review, 2,34-55Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. London: Penguin. Redlinger, W, & Park, T. (19 8 o). Language mixing in young bilinguals. Journal of Child Language, 7, 337-352. Ronjat, J. (1913)- Le developpement du langage observe chez un enfant bilingue [Language develop­ ment observed in a bilingual child]. Paris: Champion. Tabouret-Keller, A. (1969). Le bilinguisme de I' enfant avant six ans [Bilingualism before the age of six]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Strasbourg. Taeschner,T.(i983). Thesun is feminine: A study of language acquisition in bilingual children. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Vihman, M. M. (1985). Language differentiation by a bilingual infant.Journal of Child Language,i2, 297-324Vila, I., & Cortes, M. (1991). Aspectos relativos al desarrollo lexical y morfosintactico de los bilingues familiares [Aspects concerning lexical and morphosyntactic development in children from bilingual families]. In I. Idiazabal (Ed.), Adquisicion del lenguaje en ninos bilingues y monolingues—Hizkuntz Jabekuntza Haur Elebidun eta Elebakarretan (pp. 109-127). San Sebastian: Servicio Editorial de la U.P.V. Volterra, V., & Taeschner, T. (1978). The acquisition of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language, 5(2), 311-326.

Nonagent Subjects in Early Child Language: A Crosslinguistic Comparison

NANCY BUDWIC SARENA STEIN CATHERINE O'BRIEN

Clark University

Agency has been noted to play a significant role in children's early word combi­ nations (see Budwig, 1995, for review). Although there is substantial evidence that from the earliest word combinations, children link the notion of grammat­ ical subject with agent, less is known about the development of nonagent subjects. This chapter reports on an exploratory study that examined the frequency and function of English- and German-speaking children's talk about nonagent subjects. Specifically, this study focuses on nonagent subjects by examining not only issues of frequency, but also the forms and functions associated with such usage. In addition, it makes crosslinguistic comparisons of children acquiring English and German. Prior research shows that by age 3, English-speaking children are beginning to make use of a "family of constructions" such as middles and passives that shift focus from prototypical agency and allow for topicalizing nonagent subjects in a narrative setting, whereas crosslinguistic comparisons with German children have revealed the absence of such usage (see Berman & Slobin, 1994; Slobin, 1994). And although Bowerman (19903) indicated early emergence of nonagent subjects in a variety of constructions in her diary studies of her daughters' acquisition of English, it is not clear why such constructions have been sporadic at best in German children's early acquisition. This study was designed to consider the relationship between cognitive flexibil­ ity and typological difference in children's early use of nonagent subjects in the acquisition of English and German. Our discussion can be contextualized within the ongoing examination of early syntactic development by a number of researchers. It has now been well-documented that early syntactic rules do not generalize across all verbs, and yet there are a variety of answers for the basis of such generalizations. Most prior work on the nature of early syntactic rules has focused on active clause 49

50

BUDWIC, STEIN, O'BRIEN

structure and children's growing ability to distinguish transitive and intransi­ tive verbs that are accompanied by human participants. Currently, significantly less is known about children's use of nonanimate subjects and developmental aspects of such usage. In examining the developmental unfolding of the ability to use nonagent subjects we first consider the issue of voice. One of the main ways speakers of many languages, including English and German, focus on nonagent subjects is through voice alternations. We begin with a brief discussion of literature on voice alternations from a functional linguistic perspective. Next, we examine what is known about agency and voice stemming from a review of the develop­ mental psycholinguistic literature. Finally, we review the questions that guided the current study. VOICE ALTERNATIONS

In an attempt to better understand the developmental unfolding of distinct construction types, we begin our discussion with a review of some basic distinctions made in the functional linguistic literature between active clause syntax and other potential constructions. We work with a basic distinction between active constructions, passive constructions, and those we refer to as middles. For the purposes of this chapter, we draw on a discussion by AcreArenales, Axelrod, and Fox (1994) in deriving our definitions. Acre-Arenales et al. (1994) described a two-part distinction in discussing voice contrasts. They suggested that all nominative-accusative languages draw on a distinction of having syntactic subjects that can be semantically viewed as either "affected or not affected by the action described in the predicate" (p. i). If the subject is not affected by the action described by the predicate, then this is treated as a basic active voice sentence. In contrast, we consider middle voice constructions as those that have active clause structure in which the subject is affected by the action of the predicate (see Acre-Arenelas et al., 1994). Passive constructions are like middle constructions to the extent that the subject is affected by the action of the predicate, but at the same time, passive construc­ tions receive distinct syntactic marking, for instance, in English Noun Phrase + BE/GET+ Past participle. A number of researchers have argued that voice alternations are best under­ stood through an appeal to cognitive models and discursive purposes associated with such usage (see Fox & Hopper, 1994). For instance, in her crosslinguistic analysis of middle voice, Kemmer (1994) argued that middles are best interpreted semantically rather than syntactically. Middles are found in what she refers to as semantically mixed contexts and "are situated along a line of transitivity on which they are intermediate between two- and oneparticipant events" (p. 221). To this extent, voice contrasts in languages "express divergences from canonical event types that fall at opposite extremes along a

3

Nonagent Subjects in Early Child Language 51 Language

51

scale of semantic transitivity" (p. 222). Croft (1994), too, argued for the connection between particular conceptualizations of events and voice alterna­ tions; however, he added that these event conceptualizations are part of broader discursive perspectives that speaker's adopt, thus highlighting the role that the event representations do not exist independently from the contexts in which talk is embedded (see Croft, pp. 112-114, for further discussion). A similar mix of semantic and discourse accounts have been given for passives. Several authors have distinguished get and be passives in terms of the distinct conceptual events and discourse contexts linked with their usage (see Acre-Arenales et al., i994;Givon &Yang, 1994; Lakoff, 1971), suggesting that get passives are better interpreted as middle-like. In sum, voice alternations have been noted to serve a set of related functions across languages. Although each language presents a somewhat distinct set of typological alternatives, in general, voice alternations function to allow speakers to adopt distinct perspectives on events in ongoing discourse. A C Q U I R I N G CONSTRUCTION TYPES: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

Based on functional-linguistic literature which suggests that voice alternations can best be interpreted as speakers' attempts to shift perspective on events, the question can be raised concerning development. Do children start with proto­ typical event perspectives and only gradually branch out to mark less prototypical events? Or do they follow the input of the target language from very early on? We will see that currently there are few answers to these questions, mainly because so much of the developmental psycholinguistic literature has focused on active clause structure and relatively little is known about alternative constructions (see Clark, 1990; Tomasello & Brooks, in press, for excellent reviews). We turn now to review what is known about the course and process by which children come to make use of a variety of constructions to manipulate event perspective. Active Clause Structure Although it is clear that children produce active clause structures by age 2, it is less clear whether children hold various sorts of instances as being part of the same syntactic structure. At the heart of this debate is whether young children consider various transitive constructions of the sort NP+Verb+NP as all being part of the same construction type. Currently there are at least three perspectives on how children move from holophrases to active clause structures. One view that has been gaining popularity suggests an extremely protracted phase of development. Children are said to begin with nonadultlike categorizations. In short, children begin

52

BUDWIC, STEIN, O'BRIEN

with piecemeal solutions and slowly work toward adultlike language-specific generalizations. This proposal has been put forth with a variety of nuances; a description or two will illustrate the proposed process. A first instance of this piecemeal solution can be found in Braine's (1976) discussion of limited-scope formulae. The central idea here is that children's early usage of verbs and relational words are tied to fairly specific scenes, rather than more abstract and general semantic categories. A very similar proposal can be found in Tomasello's (1992) more recent discussion of the Verb Island Hypothesis. Tomasello claims that at this early phase of development, there are few abstract generalizations and combinatorial speech is based on lexically specific patterns. Although diary data made it difficult to determine how general some categories such as agent and patient were, experimental evidence led Tomasello and his colleagues to conclude that the children studied did not have categories such as agent and patient before age 3; instead, the children were said to be working with more verb-specific patterns such as 'kisser' and 'person kissed' (see Akhtar & Tomasello, 1997; Olguin & Tomasello, 1993). A second kind of proposal suggests that early on children's grammatical development is linked to prototypical scenes. Slobin, based on crosslinguistic studies of children acquiring several languages, has been a major force in articulating this view, which he has labeled "Basic Child Grammar" (see Slobin, 1985). According to this perspective, children are neither beginning with full blown adult categories, nor are they working in a verb-specific manner. For instance, rather than marking transitivity per se, young children acquiring a variety of languages have been noted to use linguistic forms that in their language link up with transitivity to mark something called the "Manipulative Activity Scene." This scene involves "the experiential gestalt of a basic causal event in which an agent carries out a physical and perceptible change of state in a patient by means of direct body contact or with an instrument under the agent's control"(Slobin, 1985, p. 1175). Budwig (1989,1995) provided evidence for children's special marking of this scene and various deviations in English, and Rispoli and Bloom (1987) formulated a similar developmental argument for the conceptual origins of the transitive-intransitive distinction for English as well. How might children move from such early conceptually based origins to more abstract categories? One account of this, provided by Schlesinger (1982, 1988), has been referred to as "semantic assimilation" (SA). In keeping with Tomasello's (1992) Verb Island Hypothesis, Schlesinger proposed a gradual solution—although here the child is said to be working first with narrowly defined prototypical categories and gradually extending them based on semantic similarity. For instance, in considering subject-predicate relations, Schlesinger suggested that prototypical agency serves as the starting point. Gradually, other subjects that are not agents (e.g., instruments) are integrated, based on a learning process. Schlesinger (1988) claimed:

3

Nonagent Subjects in Early Child Language

53

It is proposed that prototypical agents have three features that are especially relevant to SA: the agent (a) is in motion; (b) is the cause of the action described by the verb and responsible for it; and (c) is in control of this action. Similarity in any one of these three features makes SA possible, (p. 134)

The claim here, then, is that at first children will begin with animate subjects and only gradually, based on semantic assimilation, will the child use nonagent subjects. Finally, a third kind of proposal has been that children are capable from early on to enter into the system provided by the typology of their language. That is, rather than beginning with a lexical approach or cognitive point of origin, children are influenced by the typological distinctions offered by the input language from the start. Bowerman (1985), for instance, in her challenge to Slobin's Basic Child Grammar approach, suggested that children may be more flexible in their earliest forays into learning the language-specific ways of marking grammatical roles. Bowerman agreed that it may well be the case that children universally are biased toward a scene involving prototypical agency, such as Slobin's "manipulative activity scene." Nevertheless she argued that what is critical is what children across the world do with intransitive subjects. In discussing children's acquisition of nominative-accusative languages and ergative languages she found no evidence of an unbiased entry point. Children acquiring ergative languages were noted to treat intransitive subjects like objects, whereas children acquiring nominative-accusative languages were said to treat intransitive subjects like transitive agent subjects. Bowerman (1985) concluded: In summary, there is good evidence that children show sensitivity even in their earliest sentences to the classification their language imposes on the constituent "intransitive subject," especially that subset of intransitive subjects comprising actors who perform actions described by verbs like come, sleep, cry, and sit. (p. 129 8)

In an examination of whether linking rules are innate, Bowerman (i99ob) came to a similar conclusion concerning her daughters' acquisition of the arguments of English mental verbs. Appealing to children's sensitivity to typological patterns of the language they are acquiring, Bowerman noted that after correctly using both stimulus-subject patterns and experiencer-subject patterns, the children went through a later phase in which they "overgeneralize[d] a statistically predominant linkage pattern for mental verbs of English to verbs that [were] exceptions to it" (p. 1285). Passive and Middle Constructions As already noted, very little work on early syntactic development has focused on constructions other than actives, in part, perhaps, because such constructions

54

BUDWIC, STEIN, O'BRIEN

come later than the acquisition of active clause structure. In part some of this may have been guided by the theoretical focus on transformational grammar and the view that such constructions are best viewed as syntactic puzzles (Slobin, 1994). Research starting from a functional linguistic perspective has shown that passives and other related constructions can be found relatively early on and are used to mark distinct speaker perspectives on events. Children acquiring Bantu languages (Demuth, 1989, 1990; Suzman, 1985), Inuktitut (Allen & Crago, 1996), and K'iche' Mayan (Pye & Quiztan Poz, 1988) use passives before age 3. Part of this early usage has been explained in terms of differences in frequency in the input and discourse function. At the same time, however, researchers viewing the acquisition of the passive in terms of seman­ tic and discursive notions associated with such usage also have found precocious passives by the age of three (see, e.g., Berman, 1985; Bowerman, 1982,19903; Budwig, 1990; Clark, 1982; 1990; Savasir, 1983). With documentation of productive, though perhaps sporadic, use of middle and passive constructions before age 3, the question can be raised as to whether such uses have been noted to link up with particular event perspectives and dis­ course contexts. Turning first to the passive, Budwig (1990) noted that before age 4, the children studied appeared to link the use of get versus be passives to talk about two different perspectives on events that deviated from perspectives taken with active constructions. Get passives were favored when the speaker focused on the negative consequences of the action on the patient (e.g., The boys got soaked; I just got pinched from these pointed stuff). In contrast, be passives linked up with talk about a scene in which the agent was generic, irrelevant, or unknown (e.g., I'm gonna have a will and it's gonna say that I wanna be ashed; Does the cream of wheat need to be cooled?). In a study of the acquisition of Turkish, Savasir (1983) reported that 2-year-olds restricted the use of agentless passive to scenes in which a child met with resistance from the environment in bringing about a desired change of state when manipulating objects. For instance, a child trying to open a door, unable to and failing to bring about the desired change, uttered something to the effect of "It isn't being opened." Such usage can be said to focus on a negative result, as Budwig has said to be the case with get passives. At the same time, in the Turkish case the focus seems to be more on blocked intentions and resistance from the environment than negative result per se. Slobin (1985) also cited Berman (1985) as suggesting the agentive versus result perspective provides an organizing point for Hebrew children. Early on, children use causative transitive patterns versus middle voice patterns to mark agentive versus result perspectives. In sum, there has been little systematic study of passive and related constructions in early child language. There have been some isolated reports of children limiting the use of particular syntactic structures to talk about not only prototypical agency, but also various deviations from that. A collective reading of these reports suggests that perhaps, between ages 2 and 3, children limit the

3

Nonagent Subjects in Early Child Language

55

use of particular devices to child-specific interpretations of prototypicality. By ages 3 or 4, children's usage appears to be more conventional. For instance, Slobin (1994) and Berman and Slobin (1994) suggested that children in their extensive, crosslinguistic study of emerging narrative abilities were able to use a variety of devices to diminish agency and place undergoers in focus. At the same time, despite their finding of cognitive flexibility, they also found crosslinguistic differences, suggesting to them that the children were very much influenced by typological factors of the individual languages being acquired. For instance, German children did not use the passive and showed relatively late and infrequent use of other topicalizing and de-agentivizing devices: We were repeatedly surprised to discover how closely learners stick to the set of distinctions that they have been given by their language— We are left, then, with a new respect for the powerful role of each individual language in shaping its own world of expression, while at the same time representing but one variant of a familiar and universally human pattern. (Berman & Slobin, 1994, p. 641)

THE P R E S E N T STUDY

We started our discussion by noting that several researchers maintain that agency plays a pivotal role in early child language. Although it is clear that children acquiring nominative-accusative languages make use of agent subjects, signifi­ cantly less is known about the acquisition of nonagent subjects. This was an exploratory study into the early use of nonagent subjects in children's acquisition of English and German. The following questions were raised: 1. Do children use nonagent subjects from their earliest word combinations? 2. If so, do nonagent subjects appear in a variety of construction types? 3. Do nonagent subjects appear with a few verbs, or is such usage generalized across verbs? 4. Do nonagent subjects appear at particular pragmatic junctures? 5. To what extent does such usage depend on caregiver prompting?

Answers to these questions will help provide partial answers to current debates concerning how much of early syntactic development is piecemeal, how much is dependent on general cognitive flexibility, and how much centers around typological options of the target language being acquired. METHOD

Participants and Procedures

Six English-speaking children from Berkeley, California, ranging in age between 20 and 32 months were videotaped while engaging in 45 minutes of seminaturalistic play twice a month for a 4-month period. Once a month the

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children were observed with their caregiver; the second taping involved play with a peer. Three German-speaking children of similar ages from Berlin were videotaped once a month while playing with their caregiver for a 4-month period. Transcripts were made of each session according to a modified version of the CHAT procedure (see MacWhinney & Snow, 1990). All utterances containing a nonagent subject were targeted for analysis. These utterances were then further coded according to a multilevel coding system. Coding Level i: Construction Type. All target utterances were coded according to construction type. Following Arce-Arenales et al. (1994): The class of sentences with syntactically active subjects which are semantically not affected by the action of the verb we will treat as basic active voice sentences; the class of sentences with syntactically active subjects which are semantically affected by the action of the verb we will treat as middle diathesis sentences, (p. i)

All target utterances with clauses containing the form Noun Phrase+BE/GET+ Past Participle that were not adjectival were counted as passives (see Budwig, 1990). Examples i through 3 illustrate these distinctions: (1) The child broke the jar (2) The jar broke (3) The jar got broken by the child

(active) (middle) (passive)

Although the examples given here are quite clear, on occasion the children's usage was more ambiguous. This typically happened in the midst of pretend play episodes when the children were manipulating objects and it was unclear whether they were describing the results of their actions or treating discursively the object as actor. For instance, consider the example, The helicopter's gonna land, said after the child had picked up a toy helicopter and begun to lower it to the play table. The utterance could be taken two ways. First, the child might have been making a statement that reflects the change of location of the helicopter, in some sense talking about the helicopter as patient. At the same time the child could have been referring to the helicopter as a kind of actor, who was in control of the landing. The point of this example is simply to suggest that there were occasional instances that were ambiguous. Typically, observation of the videotapes in which the flow of activity was embedded in ongoing context, along with consideration of nonverbal and paralinguistic cues, made the decision clear. Instances that remained ambiguous were coded as such and later collapsed into the "Other" category, given their infrequent occurrence. Level 2: Verb Choice. Here the verb used in each utterance was noted. This helped to determine whether the children were using a range of verbs

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Nonagent Subjects in Early Child Language 57 Language

57

already in the earliest sessions or whether their usage of verbs with nonagent subjects was more piecemeal. Levely. Pragmatic Function. Each utterance containing a nonagent subject was coded in terms of its pragmatic function. Categories were based on prior literature as well as inductively working with pilot data. For instance, given prior literature on acquisition of passives and middles, coding examined whether the children were attempting to topicalize nonagent subjects, by reporting on resistance to intentions (Savasir, 1983; Savasir & Gee, 1982). The "Resistance" category included all utterances in which a child's utterance functioned to describe ways the environment was not conforming to the child's intentions or goal-directed actions. Based on Budwig's (1990) work, we examined whether children used nonagent subjects when referring to negative effects on patients. Coders unfamiliar with the literature on voice were given target utterances and asked to inductively come up with hypotheses about what pragmatic contexts these appeared in. Three of these were the categories: "'Creating a new play frame," which included all targeted utterances in which the child introduced a new way to play into the discourse; "Explanations," which included instances in which the children described inanimate subjects in terms of their features or properties (e.g., Helicopter propellers spin); and "Norms," which included talk about ways in which objects belong, fit or go with one another (e.g., That goes like that). A final category included all target utterances that did not fit any of these function categories. Level 4: Discourse Context. At this level we considered the discursive context in which targeted utterances appeared. We coded whether the child's use of the nonagent subject was spontaneous or contingent. Was the children's growing use of nonagent subjects related to prior discourse scaffolding by the communicative partner (e.g., a prior statement or question about the nonagent subject)? Level 5: Activity Context. At this final level we examined the relation between the target utterance and ongoing play with objects. In particular, we examined whether the child uttered the target utterance while playing with an object, having just been manipulating an object, or had not been manipulating an object at all. Analysis Analysis focused on each of the independent levels of coding, as well as on the relationship between the construction type and other levels of coding for each language. SPXX for Windows was used to facilitate analysis.

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FIG . 3.1. Percentage of nonagent subjects across construction types: Berkeley chil­ dren (n - 311 utterances).

RESULTS

English-Speaking Children Across the 48 video sessions, the six children used a total of 311 nonagent con­ structions. It can be noted that each of the children made, on average, more than 10 times as many references to agents per session (see Budwig, 1995). The nonagent subjects, then, can be viewed as an infrequent sort of occurrence for these children. The multilevel functional analysis, nevertheless, points up some systematic co-occurrence patterns indicating that from the earliest word com­ binations, children contrastively employ such forms. The first level of analysis examined the frequency of nonagent subject con­ struction according to the various construction types (see Fig. 3.1). Two main kinds of construction were employed with nonagent subjects. Most frequent was the use of middle constructions; almost half of all nonagent subjects (49%) were found in such constructions. Examples 4 to 6 illustrate the children's use of middle constructions: (4) Oh it came off again (5) The doors won't open (6) That fell over

All of these were considered middles because the subject can be considered to be affected by the action of the predicate. Active intransitive constructions were almost as frequent, consisting of 39% of all constructions with nonagent subject. Examples of active intransitives included:

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(7) The ambulance came (8) Now it [ = bulldozer] will dump (9) It [ = helicopter] flies

These utterances were considered active intransitives because the subject was not affected by the verb but rather played a causal role in transferring the action described. Each of these examples could perhaps be considered metonomy (see Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), in that ambulances, bulldozers, and helicopters do not move without the assistance of animate agents. At the same time, our inter­ est is in speaker perspective, and it appears that in each of these cases the speaker attributed at least a partial causal role to the subject and did not adopt a perspective suggesting that the subject was affected by the predicate. It is interesting to note that active transitive and passive constructions were associated with nonagent subjects very infrequently. Less than 12% of all nonagent subjects were found in such construction types. The remainder of our analysis focuses on the relationship between the two dominant construction types and other categories of analysis. Our second level of analysis questioned whether children linked the use of either the intransitive actives or the middles with a limited number of verbs. Here we were interested in assessing whether the children were learning to use particular verbs on an individual basis or whether there was productivity of a more general sort. We found no evidence of children learning verbs based only on input received. First of all, there were instances used by the children that appeared novel as, for instance, when Eric described seeds he was growing to his mother by saying It planted. In addition, the children used a wide range of verbs from the earliest sessions and some verbs appeared in several kinds of constructions. For instance, the children used verbs such as go, come, land, pick up, etc., in active intransitive constructions and get, go, come off, broken, work, fit, etc., in middle constructions. One might question whether the children went through a phase of more restricted use prior to the onset of the study, and while that remains a possibility, several of the children were just beginning to combine two-word utterances at the start of the study, so this seems unlikely (seeBudwig, 1995). We turn next to an examination of whether the construction types link up with particular pragmatic functions. Our analysis indeed found differences (see Fig. 3.2). Middles with nonagent subjects primarily were linked with the children's announcing resistance from the environment to their own intentions or goal- directed actions. For instance, Example (5) was said with reference to a toy helicopter with doors painted on its body. The child was attempting to open the doors, and when he could not succeed, he stated, The doors won't open. In contrast, the function of resistance from the environment rarely linked up with the use of intransitive active constructions with nonagent subjects. Instead, the overwhelming majority of intransitive active constructions linked

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FIG. 3.2. Percentage of nonagent subjects by pragmatic function: Berkeley children (n = 311 utterances).

up with the children's attempts to create a new play frame. Example (9) makes reference to the same helicopter. Here the child had been examining the helicopter, then lifted it into the air pretending to fly it. The child announced, It flies, in an attempt to get his play partner to start engaging in a new play frame. The fourth level of analysis examined whether the nonagent subjects in middle and active intransitive constructions were spontaneous or contingent on scaffolding by the communicative partner. Our analysis revealed little support for the hypothesis that children were producing such subjects due to assistance from others. One might have expected, for instance, that these constructions were used in response to caregivers' queries or statements about inanimate subjects. As Fig. 3.3 shows, nonagent subjects were spontaneously produced the majority of the time regardless of construction type. That is, it was not the case that a child's usage was specifically linked to a caregiver modeling the nonagent subject in prior statements or questions. We found that 57% of all middle constructions and 53% of the active intransitives were spontaneously produced. In fact, only 10% of middles and intransitives with nonagent subjects occurred after a partner's query about the nonagent subject. In sum, analysis of the discourse context surrounding the use of nonagent subjects suggests such usage by the children did not require their caregivers' mediation. The final level of coding examined the activity context in which nonagent subjects were employed. Our analysis focused on whether the use of nonagent subjects in the two dominant construction types occurred with distinct patterns of object manipulation. Results reveal that although nonagent subjects in both construction types tended to be mentioned while the child was

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F i G . 3.3. Percentage of nonagent subjects by discursive context: Berkeley children (n = 311 utterances).

currently manipulating the object, there were clear differences between the two construction types. The use of nonagent subjects in intransitive constructions primarily (87%) occurred as the child was currently manipulating the object being discussed. In contrast, 42% of the middles with nonagent subjects occurred after the child had stopped manipulating the object. In summary, although nonagent subjects are not a frequent occurrence in the data set, we found them in two kinds of constructions: middles and active intransitives. Our analysis of pragmatic function and discourse and activity contexts suggests a variety of factors associated with such usages. We turn now to consider how the children's use of the two construction types marked a contrast between two ways of positioning nonagent subjects in discourse. Nonagent subjects found in middle constructions linked up with utterances that functioned to mark goal-blocking or resistance from the environment. These spontaneous mentions most often occurred when children were manipulating objects, but also often were found just after the children stopped manipulating objects. In contrast, the intransitive uses of nonagent subjects were found in utterances that functioned to announce bids for novel play frames. Rather than focusing on their ongoing manipulations of objects, as often is the case in their use of active transitive constructions, here the children shifted focus to ways in which objects could be introduced into the play frames. Such utterances almost always occurred in conjunction with the children's manipulation of toy objects. In conclusion, the children not only distinguished agent subjects from nonagent subjects, but also used two different construction types (middles and intransitives) to distinguish contrastive ways of introducing nonagent subjects into the discourse.

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The German-Speaking Children The German-speaking children, on average, produced a similar number of nonagent subjects. Whereas the English-speaking children produced an average of 26 nonagent subject constructions per session, the German-speaking children produced an average of 28 such target utterances per session. Although the majority of children's talk was not about nonagent subjects, their use of particular construction types also revealed some interesting formfunction correspondences. The first level of analysis considered the distribution of nonagent subjects according to construction type (see Fig. 3.4). The German-speaking children's nonagent subjects also primarily involved active intransitive and middle constructions. Forty-three percent of all nonagent subject utterances were active intransitives, whereas 44% were coded as middles. The contrast between active intransitives (Examples 10 and 11) and the middles (Examples 12 and 13) is illustrated below: (10) die fiihrt selber 'she [ = locomotive] drives by herself (11) fahrtse [fahrt sie] jetztgleich wieder zuruck 'she [= locomotive] drives now once again back' (12) da kommen die hin 'there they fit inside' (13) das gehort dem Teller 'that belongs (with) the plate'

These children rarely used nonagent subjects in passive or active transitive constructions. A second level of analysis examined the range of verbs used with the various construction types by the German-speaking children. Each of the construction types occurred with a range of verbs from the earliest sessions. There was no indication that a construction type was linked with only a particular verb or two. One might claim that perhaps at some point prior to testing the children went through this phase. Although this may be the case for two of the children, one child did not use any middle or intransitive constructions in the first session but in the second session, i month later, used several different verbs in middle and active intransitive constructions, including fahren 'drive', baden 'bathe', kommen''come', fallen 'fall', etc. We next consider whether the use of nonagent subjects in active intransitive constructions and middle constructions could be distinguished in terms of pragmatic function (see Fig. 3.5). Our analysis revealed that intransitive constructions involving nonagent subjects occurred primarily when the children attempted to create a new play frame. Such use was identical to the American children's use of similar constructions. For instance, in Examples 10

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FIG . 3.4. Percentage of nonagent subjects across construction types: Berlin children (n = 84 utterances).

FIG . 3.5. Percentage of nonagent subjects by pragmatic function: Berlin children (« = 84 utterances).

and 11, the children had been building with blocks and then turned their attention to a toy train. The children's utterances served to shift focus. While the English-speaking children's use of middles was noted to link up with the context of the child's discussing goal blockage or ways the environment resisted the child's intentions, such usage was rarely noted in the Germanspeaking data set with middle constructions. Only 14% of all middle usage could be accounted for in this way. The majority of all target utterances occurring in middle constructions expressed norms. As Examples (12) and (13) illustrate, such usage tended to refer to instances of objects belonging, fitting, or going with one another in particular ways. In Example (13) the child was matching a pretend

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coffee cup with a saucer of the same color. This focus on norms was not found in the English-speaking children's use of middle constructions. It is important to note that it was not the case that the German children did not talk about resistance to goals and intentions. In fact they did so frequently, but rather than using nonagent subjects, they used subjectless constructions. Examples 14 and 15 illustrate such instances: (14) umgefallen! (said as child was attempting to build up block tower) 'fallen down!' (15) kaputt gemacht! (said after child accidently knocked over a "garage" built out 'made broken!' of blocks)

In summary, although the German-speaking children did not frequently use nonagent subjects, we nevertheless noted that their usage was systematically linked with particular kinds of construction types. Occurrences of nonagent subjects were equally divided between intransitive active and middle con­ structions. Furthermore, we noted that German children used these two types of constructions to distinctly shift perspective away from the prototypical transitive frame. Intransitive active constructions with nonagent subjects were used when the children negotiated new play frames. In contrast, the middle constructions were found in instances where the child shifted focus away from their active manipulation of objects, in order to describe normative ways objects could be related to one another. In sum, it appears that the German-speaking children not only distinguished agent subjects from nonagent ones, but also linked such usage to two distinct ways of introducing nonagent subjects into the discourse. For reasons that remain unclear, they also referred to a scene involving goal blocking, but did not mention nonagent subjects in their subjectless constructions. DISCUSSION

In this chapter, we have provided evidence that children acquiring both English and German made regular use of a variety of construction types to talk about nonagent subjects. All uses provided the speaker with a contrastive way to talk about nonprototypical agency. Although it has been noted previously that American and German children shift perspective regarding degree of agency by contrastively employing pronominal and nominal forms in transitive active constructions, the present analysis reveals that the children, from their earliest word combinations, could employ other construction types with nonagent subjects to mark other kinds of deviations. In contrast to the present study, prior research has suggested that the use of passives is one way children shift perspective away from prototypical agency (see Bowerman, 19903; Budwig, 1990). Although both American and German children showed cognitive flexibility to shift perspective, the use of the passive

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was rare for both the Berkeley and Berlin children. It might well be the case that the sort of activity contexts presented to the children in the present analysis biased the children away from the passive construction and that more natural­ istic settings with a wider range of activity contexts would pull for such usage. Future work will need to address this issue. Although both American and German children drew upon various linguis­ tic resources to talk about nonprototypical agency, there were differences as well as similarities in the kinds of form-function relationships constructed by both groups. One major similarity between the two groups of children was the use of active intransitives with nonsubject agents when negotiating new play frames. All children shifted perspective from the way particular human agents moved manipulative toys to a perspective suggesting ways inanimate objects could be used to develop joint play episodes. Although in every instance, the children could have opted to describe their own actions on the objects, the rhetorical purpose was to communicate to another the way the overall play frame was to be understood. Although both groups of children showed similar use of active intransitives, they differed in terms of the main function of middle constructions with nonagent subjects. The Berkeley children used middle constructions to mark a perspective in which objects were not conforming to their intentions. In con­ trast, the Berlin children employed middles to mark a perspective in which inanimate objects were related to normative standards. In conclusion, this study provides further evidence for the claim forwarded by Berman and Slobin (1994) and Bowerman (19903) that children show an early cognitive flexibility to talk about deviations from a prototypical agent event frame. At least by the time they combine words, children acquiring English and German are able to use various constructions to index different perspectives on human causation and various deviations. Although the children we studied showed clear indication of cognitive flexibility, at the same time it is important to note that their usage was not adultlike, in that the children seemed to restrict their usage of nonagent subjects in particular types of constructions to specific activity contexts. This highlights the importance of adopting a developmental perspective that examines subtle changes in the ways speakers link forms and functions at various points in time. The findings here fit with those of others who have viewed the development of linguistic forms as taking place over a protracted time period (see Berman & Slobin, 1994; Budwig, 1995, for review). One remaining question concerns what influences the children's clusterings of forms and functions in the two groups of speakers. Why is it that children simi­ larly link the use of nonagent subjects in intransitive constructions with creating a new play frame, but differ in the function of middle constructions linking up with nonagent subjects? At this point, there remains a tension with regard to the extent to which general cognitive, typological, and socialization factors influence

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such patternings. In order to resolve issues regarding this tension, future research will need to tease apart not only crosslinguistic variation, but also within language variation of children growing up in discursive communities that vary in particular ways. Studies such as this have conflated linguistic typology and typ­ ology in use. Future research will contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationship between language typology, discursive purpose, and cogni­ tive flexibility in talk about agency and various deviations. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank Michael Bamberg, Carolyn Johnson, Luke Moissinac, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. REFERENCES Acre-Arenales, M., Axelrod, M., & Fox, B. (1994). Active voice and middle diathesis: A crosslinguis­ tic perspective. In B. Fox & P. Hopper (Eds.), Voice: Form and function (pp. 1-21) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Akhtar, N., & Tomasello, M. (1997). Young children's productivity with word order and verb mor­ phology. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 952-965. Allen, S., & Crago, M. (1996). Early passive acquisition in Inuktuit. Journal of Child Language, 23, 129-156. Berman, R. (1985). The acquisition of Hebrew. In D. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. i: The data (pp. 255-371). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Berman, R., & Slobin, D. (19 9 4). Different ways of relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic devel­ opmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bowerman, M. (1982). Reorganizational processes in lexical and syntactic development. In E. Wanner & L. R. Gleitman (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp. 319-346). New York: Cambridge University Press. Bowerman, M. (1985). What shapes children's grammars? In D. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2: Theoretical issues (pp. 1257-1320). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bowerman, M. (1990, March). When the patient is the subject: Sorting out passives, anticausatives, and middles in the acquisition of English. Paper presented to Voice Symposium, University of California, Santa Barbara. Bowerman, M. (i99ob). Mapping thematic roles onto syntactic functions: Are children helped by innate linking rules? Linguistics, 28,1253-1290. Braine, M. (1976). Children's first word combinations. Monographs of the Society for Child Development, No. 41. (Serial No. 164). Budwig, N. (1989). The linguistic marking of agentivity and control in child language. Journal of Child Language,16,263-284. Budwig, N. (1990). The linguistic marking of non-prototypical agency: An exploration into children's use of passives. Linguistics, 28,1221-1252. Budwig, N. (1995). A developmental-functionalist approach to child language. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Clark, E. (1982). The young word maker: A case study of innovation in the child's lexicon. In E. Wanner & L. R. Gleitman (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp. 390-425). New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Clark, E. (1990). Speaker perspective in language acquisition. Linguistics, 28,1201-1220. Croft, W. (1994). Voice: Beyond control and affectedness. In B. Fox & P. Hopper (Eds.), Voice: Form and function (pp. 89-118). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Demuth, K. (1989). Maturation and the acquisition of the Sesotho passive, Language, 65,56-80. Demuth, K. (1990). Subject, topic, and Sesotho passive. Journal of Child Language, 17, 67-84. Fox, B., & Hopper, P. (Eds.). (1994). Voice: Form and function. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Giv6n,T.,&Yang,L. (1994). The rise of the English gef-passive. In B. Fox&P. Hopper (Eds.), Voice: Form and function (pp. 119-150). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kemmer, S. (1994). Middle voice, transitivity and events. In B. Fox & P. Hopper (Eds.), Voice: Form and function (pp. 179-230). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lakoff, R. (1971). Passive resistance. Chicago Linguistics Society, 7,149-162. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacWhinney, B., & Snow, C. (1990). The Child Language Data Exchange System: An Update. Journal of Child Language, 17,457-472. Olguin, R., & Tomasello, M. (1993). Two-year-olds do not have a grammatical category of verb. Cognitive Development, 8,245-272. Pye, C., & Quixtan Poz, P. (19 8 8). Precocious passives and antipassives in Quiche Mayan. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 27,71-80. Rispoli, M., & Bloom, L. (1987). The conceptual origins of the transitive/intransitive distinction. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 26, 96-103. Savasir, I. (1983). How many futures? Unpublished master's thesis, University of California, Berkeley. Savasir, I., & Gee, J. (1982). The functional equivalents of middle voice in child language. Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Berkeley Linguistics Society, 6 07-616. Schlesinger, I. (1982). Steps to language: Toward a theory of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.. Schlesinger, I. (1988). The origin of relational categories. In Y. Levy, I. M. Schlesinger, & M. Braine (Eds.), Categories and processes in language acquisition (pp. 121-178). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Slobin, D. (i 9 8 5). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2: Theoretical issues (pp. 1157-1256). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Slobin, D. (1994). Passives and alternatives in children's narratives in English, Spanish, German, and Turkish. In B. Fox & P. Hopper (Eds.), Voice: Form and function (pp.34i-36 4). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Suzman, S. (1985). Learning the passive in Zulu. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 24,131-137. Tomasello, M. (1992). First verbs: A case study of early grammatical development. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Tomasello, M., & Brooks, P. (in press). Early syntactic development: A construction grammar ap­ proach. In M. Barrett (Ed.), The development of language. London: UCL Press.

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Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives: A,t the Interface of Linguistic and

Cognitive Development

ANA T. P E " R E Z - L E R O U X

University of Toronto

What is the relationship between our cognitive capacity and our ability for language? This is perhaps one of the most interesting questions surrounding the study of language in general, and a crucial one when considering language development in particular. This chapter examines Spanish-speaking children's learning of the use of the subjunctive mood in relative clauses in relation to their cognitive development. Subjunctive relative clauses in Spanish are used to denote the nonspecific description of a kind, and are used to refer to nonactual entities: (i)

Se imagina un castillo que tenga un dragon y una princesa '(She) imagines a castle which has-SUBJ a dragon and a princess'

It is easy to see how the acquisition of such language would be dependent on the capacity for conceiving things as nonactual (i.e., on children's metarepresentational capacity; Papafragou, 1998). The three studies discussed in this chapter explore the relation between linguistic and cognitive development by looking at the correlations between children's acquisition of a theory of mind, in particular, their capacity for representing false beliefs (Wellman, 1990; Wimmer & Perner, 1983), and their acquisition of mood selection in Spanish relative clauses. The chapter is organized as follows. In the first section I discuss the two principal linguistic markings of modality (i.e., mood and modals). In the second section I summarize the facts on children's acquisition of modals in English and subjunctive in Spanish, and discuss some possible interactions between theory of mind development and acquisition of mood and modality. In the next section I present series of studies about mood selection in Spanish. In the final section, I conclude with a general discussion.

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MOOD AND MODALITY

Mood markers and modal verbs are the two main systems which natural languages use for encoding modality on the verb. Modality involves speaker evaluation of the actuality of the event referred to by a clause. In many languages, certain types of subordinate clauses are marked by means of a special verbal morphology known as subjunctive (Bybee, 1988). This subordinating­ nonsubordinating distinction falls within what linguists call mood, that is, the grammatical category whose function is to describe the actuality of the event in terms such as possibility, necessity, or desirability (Chung & Timberlake, 1985). In Spanish, the syntactic distribution of the subjunctive is regulated by different factors in various contexts such that complement and adjunct clauses exhibit different distributions of the subjunctive mood. Semantically, the Spanish subjunctive is polysemous and can be associated with different semantic modalities. Two modalities seem most important in natural languages: epistemic modality and deontic modality. Epistemic modality evaluates the degree of speaker commitment to the truth of the proposition. Deontic modality (the modality of obligation/permission/possibility) evaluates the proposition with regard to the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents. Ability, predicated on a given agent, is grouped with deontic modality under the rubric of 'root' or 'agent-oriented' modalities. A given modal verb is typically ambiguous between a root and an epistemic reading. The following examples illustrate how the epistemic interpretation of can and must involves an evaluation of states of affairs over multiple possible worlds, whereas the deontic expresses merely the obligations and abilities of a given agent. (2) a. Ted must take a vacation b. You must be Ted's daughter

(weak obligation) (epistemic certainty)

(3) a. This car can drive at amazing speeds (ability) b. Even a large ship can sink (epistemic possibility)

Describing the relationship between mood and modalities is a complex task, leading some researchers to conclude that a given grammatical mood is not describable in terms of modality and/or truth value (Rivero, 1990). This is not a necessary conclusion if one accepts the premise that verbal morphology is generally polysemous, and that the Spanish subjunctive is not exceptional in that sense. Consider the future tense as an illustration: English will has the meaning of futurity, or it can function as a command, with the value of a deontic marker, as shown by (4 a) and (4b), respectively: (4) a. It will rain tomorrow b. You will clean up your room, right now!

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In Spanish, there seem to be at least three semantic systems involved in the use of the subjunctive mood: epistemic, deontic, and attitude-based, or epistemo­ logical, as described by Chung and Timberlake (1985). The use of the Spanish subjunctive as a marker of deontic modality can be seen in the use of subjunc­ tive morphology in negative commands as in no saigas 'don't leave', as well as in indirect commands subordinated under verbs such mandar, 'to command' and decir'to tell'. In other complement clauses mood is selected by the matrix verb, with several semantic subregularities as to which classes of verbs select which mood. Volitional verbs and factives of emotion select subjunctive, epistemic verbs and neutral factives select indicatives. The principal generalization about mood selection with complements seems to be that attitude verbs select subjunctive, whereas neutral verbs select indicative. For instance, the emotive factive verb lamentar 'to regret' takes subjunctive complements, whereas the neutral factive verb saber'to know' selects indicative complements. Mood selec­ tion is different for adjunct clauses in Spanish. For these (relative clauses, adverbial clauses, etc.) mood appears to be an expression of epistemic modality. Epistemic modality, as defined by Chung and Timberlake (1985), characterizes the relationship of an event to possible worlds. In adjunct clauses, mood reflects an evaluation of the truth of the clause: irrealis (i.e., nonactual) clauses select subjunctive, whereas realis clauses (i.e., clauses whose truth is presupposed) select indicative mood. Consider the following cases: (5)

Busco una motodcleta que tiene look-iSg a motorcycle that has-IND 'I am looking for a motorcycle that has white wheels'

ruedas white

blancas wheels

(6)

Busco una motodcleta que tenga ruedas look-iSg a motorcycle that has-SUBJ white 'I am looking for a motorcycle that has white wheels'

blancas wheels

The two sentences express different presuppositions about the truth of the event in the relative clause and the existence of the entity described. The sentence with the indicative relative presupposes that an actual motorcycle with white wheels exists. For instance, I can use the sentence in (5) if I own such motorcycle and forgot where I parked it. The subjunctive relative is incompati­ ble with this presupposition. The sentence in (6) is used only when no specific motorcycle is intended. This could be, for instance, a case in which I am shopping for a motorcycle, I have some characteristics in mind, but I have not yet selected any specific individual motorcycle. The first case illustrates what is known as the specific interpretation of the NP, and the second is the notional, or 'kind' interpretation (Martinich, 1985). Mood marking in relative clauses in Spanish eliminates the ambiguity typical of indefinites. The noun phrase a motorcycle is ambiguous in (/a):

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P£REZ-LEROUX (7) a. Melinda wants to buy a motorcycle b. . . . and she will buy it tomorrow c. .. . and she will buy one tomorrow

(from loup, 1977)

The interpretation of the indefinite as pointing to a unique individual which the speaker has in mind is the one shown in (70), whereas (70) shows the kind interpretation. These ambiguities not only depend on the interpretation of the noun phrase or of the context, but on the interaction between the two (Fodor & Sag, 1982; loup, 1977). The connection between specificity and modality is underscored by mood selection in Spanish relative clauses. The specific motor­ cycle alluded to in (7b) is an actual motorcycle. For the nonspecific reading associated with (7c), the speaker lacks the epistemic commitment, and the sentence could have the ending in (8), instead: (8) ... but she has not found one she likes, and probably never will.

Needless to say, if I were to describe the specific motorcycle in Spanish, an indicative relative would be required, whereas a subjunctive relative would be used in the case of the nonspecific kind. MODALITY AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

The Acquisition of English Modals To date, the most complete inquiry into the acquisition of modality focuses on the emergence of modals in child English which starts at an early age and unfolds gradually in later childhood. Various studies on the acquisition of English suggest that root meanings of modal verbs become productive prior to epistemic meanings (Hirst & Weil, 1982). Stephany (1986) reviewed data for other languages, which support the validity of a crosslinguistic generalization. In a recent review Papafragou (1998) argued that epistemic meanings emerge at a more advanced stage of development because epistemic modality makes stronger demands on metarepresentational capacities. Papafragou argued for a link between the acquisition of epistemic modality and the development of a theory of mind. She pointed out that expression of epistemic modality is rare before the age of 356 and becomes more prevalent after the age of 450. This is a period in children's development during which important changes in the understanding of mental events occur. According to Papafragou, the epistemic uses of modals mark operations on mental representations not unlike the kind of operations involved in the acquisition of a theory of mind. Psychologists use the expression "development of a theory of mind" to refer to young children's difficulties in making correct predictions about people's behaviors in false belief contexts and their mastery of this capacity (Wellman, 1990; Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Wimmer & Weichbold, 1994, and others). The

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

73

literature on cognitive development suggests that young children have a sophisticated understanding of the mind but also some apparent differences from adults. At an early age, children are not fully capable of understanding that an individual's mental state may include false or imperfect representations of the world. This ability, known as possessing a "representational theory of mind" changes dramatically between the ages of 356 and 550. One well-known experimental task involves asking a subject to predict the actions of a character who is looking for an object that he has seen placed in one location and that later, in his absence, has been moved to a second location. Young children typically predict that the character will look for the object in the location where it really is, not in the location where the character should believe it to be. This has been interpreted as evidence that children do not understand the represen­ tational nature of beliefs. This reality bias suggests that children treat mental states as copies, instead of representations of reality. Theory of Mind and Language Development There is a growing interest in the deep and intricate links between acquisition of language and acquisition of a theory of mind. For many, these connections go beyond complex language (i.e., epistemic modals, counterfactuals, and men­ tal verbs), being central even to fundamental aspects of language development such as the onset of speech (Locke, 1993), the system of constraints in word learning (Bloom, 1997), and the like. Some researchers in the field of communication disorders also believe that impairment in the theory of mind module can explain language delays characteristic of autistic individuals. Autistic subjects are noticeably poor at theory of mind tasks, being surpassed in performance by their mental and verbal age mates (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985). Delay patterns in autism are often related to the use of pragmatic markers linked to mental inferences about discourse participants. For instance, Hewitt (1997) found substantial errors in use of definite articles in transcripts of conversation between an autistic individual (A) and the researcher (L). (9) A L A L A

(111) I went on the train ride Oh, you went on the train ride too? Come out of the tunnel, train Was there a tunnel? Train (Hewitt, 1997)

The subject correctly produced the definite phrase 'the train ride' to refer to an entity previously identified in discourse but also overextended such use to 'the tunnel', a referent not introduced in previous discourse. Use of the definite article requires the understanding that both speaker and listener agree on a specific referent for the expression, often indicated by the discourse context. The theory of mind approach to pragmatic deficits in autism correctly predicts

74

PE"REZ-LEROUX

production of more errors with definite than with indefinite articles because use of the former but not the latter is based on inferences made about the mental states of discourse participants. In her data, Hewitt found that 27% of the total number of definite articles qualified as errors in contrast to only a 3% of the total number of indefinites. All this evidence places the question about the language-cognition connection in the foreground. For some, the relationship between language and theory of mind is fundamental to the acquisition process. Researchers such as TagerFlusberg (1997) and Locke (1993) characterize language development as dependent on two distinct mechanisms: one specific to language, the other specific to theory of mind. The coincidence in the emergence of various complex gram­ matical structures and the development of a theory of mind also raises issues about directionality and determinism between cognitive and linguistic development. The most radical position on the interaction between language and theory of mind development comes from work by deVilliers and deVilliers (in press). Examining delays in the development of theory of mind in cognitively unimpaired deaf subjects growing up with impoverished language input, these researchers have identified a strong correlation between mastery of sentential complements and theory of mind, with the former preceding the latter (deVilliers and deVilliers, in press). They argue that complex syntax makes available a representational format for false beliefs. The crucial input would take the form of a complex sentence such as (10) where the main clause is true but the complement clause is false, in a context where the mother said "I bought toilet paper," but she was, in fact, lying. (10) The mother said that she bought toilet paper.

This proposal contrasts with the standard view on the relationship between lan­ guage and cognition in that, here, the directionality of determinism is reversed, with linguistic capacity triggering conceptual capacity and not vice versa, as has generally been identified in the child language literature (Johnston, 1985). Other recent works examine the developmental coincidences between grammar and theory of mind from a semantic perspective. Papafragou (1998) pointed out that both theory of mind understanding and expression of epistemic modality require that children understand mental representations and are able to perform operations on them. In the case of false beliefs, these operations involve establishing discrepancies between an individual's mental representation and the actual world. In the case of epistemic modality, as in 'it must be raining', it involves comparing the contents of a proposition P ('it rains'), against the contents of an individual's mental states. The modal introduces certainty based on such states. In previous work I argued that the complexity of false belief reasoning can be formalized with the assistance of possible world semantics (Perez-Leroux, 1998). Different linguistic expressions place different demands with regard to

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

75

the number of possible worlds that need to be inspected to generate the computation of a given denotation. A modal expression such as 'it must be raining' is different from a simpler'it is raining' in that it requires an inspection of other possible worlds, because epistemic certainty entails that a proposition be true in all possible worlds (Bach, 1989). Epistemic possibility'It can rain' also requires a computation over multiple possible worlds, whereas only entailing that the proposition 'it rains' is true in at least one of them. Modal language is more complex than simple nonactuality. The notion of future includes an examination of multiple points on a timeline, but only within one world, whereas modality requires an examination of other possible worlds. The same can be said about false beliefs. To limit the explanation of theory of mind failure to difficulty with nonactuality underestimates the complexity of the required computation. A false belief is a representation that refers to the world not as it is, but as it could be. This entails inspections of other possible worlds. These speculations receive support from recent research pointing to differences in how children treat hypothetical propositions (i.e., statements about future possibilities) and counterfactuals (i.e., statements about hypothetical situations contrary to current states of affairs). In recent work Riggs and colleagues argued that errors in false beliefs situations are symptomatic of a broader difficulty with counterfactuality. Their data suggests that young children make fewer realist errors when asked to make inferences about future hypothetical states than when entertaining counterfactual situations (Riggs, Peterson, Robinson, & Mitchell, 1998). As in the case of modals, use of the subjunctive mood in Spanish relative clauses requires the implicit evaluation of the speaker's mental representation: Is the object actual or nonexistent? Is it specific or nonspecified in a given set? The denotation of an indicative relative is a link to an entity in the actual world. A subjunctive relative, in contrast, opens up inspection of other possible worlds. In the sections that follow, previous literature on the acquisition of Spanish subjunctive is summarized, including two earlier studies on mood selection in relative clauses. If the stages of acquisition of the subjunctive depend on changes in children's representational capabilities, one can expect to find an association between theory of mind development and mastery of mood selection in semantically related environments. Acquisition of Subjunctive in Spanish The acquisition of the subjunctive in Spanish is, like that of modals in English, a staged process that extends over many years. Acquisition of the morphologi­ cal paradigm occurs at an early age, in particular contexts. Available longitudinal studies identify the earliest uses of the subjunctive in direct and indirect commands around the age of 2 (Hernandez-Pina, 1984; Lopez-Ornat, Fernandez, Gallo, & Mariscal, 1994):

76

PEREZ-LEROUX

(11)

a. nobebas,sufa fa (Rafael, i;o) ;0 )

'don't drink, dirty' b. dilequevenga a

(Rafael, 2:4);4 )

'tell him to come'

The difference in use of the subjunctive and the indicative in young children is not quantitative but qualitative. Data from preschool children indicate that they use as much the subjunctive as the indicative mood in embedded clauses in elicited narratives (Naharro, 1996). However, controlled elicitation studies demonstrate that correct use of the subjunctive varies across constructions (Blake, 1980, 1983). Blake (1983), comparing children between the ages of 350 and io;o, and adults, observed that important changes in error rates in the children's produc­ tion of the subjunctive occurred for different constructions at different points in time. His data can be interpreted as reflecting the following acquisition order: (11)

Indirect commands > purpose clauses > relative clauses > sentential tential

complements

Interestingly, Blake found a sharp drop in error rates in the selection of subjunctive in relative clauses around the age of 450. In his data, subjunctive in purpose clauses precede subjunctive in relative clauses, despite the fact that both structures fall under the same semantic category for the purpose of mood selection. An important difference between the two is that purpose clauses always require the subjunctive, so the children could associate the purpose preposition para'for' with the subjunctive directly from the surface. In contrast, mood in relative clauses alternates on the basis of semantic distinction, and it has no association with a specific lexical item. Blake concluded that acquisition of the subjunctive is a long developmental process that takes years to complete. SUBJUNCTIVE IN RELATIVE CLAUSES IN SPANISH

Study I: Production of Relative Clauses In a study on the production of subjunctive relative clauses, I established that 3- and 4-year-old Spanish-speaking children produced a variety of responses that differed from those of their older counterparts (Perez-Leroux, 1993). Twenty-three 3- to 6-year-olds who participated in the study were read eight stories about a character searching for a person or thing. As in other relative clause elicitation protocols, other items similar to the target object were also presented in order to create the need for an elaborate description. The particu­ lar feature of this procedure was that the story provided strong indications that the target object did not exist by listing successive failures in finding the object. For instance, the story given in (13) was accompanied by an illustration that only depicted two knives, neither of which was appropriate for cutting meat.

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

77

TABL E 4.1 Mood and Determiners in Child Relatives Age

3 years 4 years 5 years 6 years

DI

i 2

5 -

II

DS

IS

QS

-

3

6 11

l

15

3

6 -

i

(13) La codnera tiene que cortar la carne. Cage un cuchillo pero no corta bien. Coge otro pero ese es para untar mantequilla. Prompt: iQue busca la cocinera? 'The cook has to cut the meat. She takes a knife but it is dull. She picks up another one but that one is only to use butter' Prompt: What is the cook looking for? Each of the stories included strong hints that the set of possible objects had been exhausted, and that no member of this set was appropriate for the task, or available at the moment. This task invariably resulted in the production of subjunctive relatives for adult speakers. All the older children in the study produced subjunctive relatives but some of the younger children failed to do so. It was not the case that these children had difficulty using subjunctive or producing embedded clauses, because all of them were able to use the subjunc­ tive mood with purpose clauses, which were elicited in a follow-up question. Thus, clearly they had knowledge of subjunctive form, but not of its use with relative clauses. Table 4.1 shows the analysis of the data produced. The relatives produced by the children were analyzed by: content of the determiner head (definite/indefinite/quantifier), and mood of the relative clause (indicative/subjunctive). Analysis revealed that the older children were more likely to produce the expected indefinite or quantifier NP accompanied by a subjunctive relative, whereas the younger children produced several nonadultlike responses. Of particular interest was a sequence of a definite determiner followed by a subjunctive relative, which was only produced by some of the younger children. (14) Definite + Subjunctive a. alnino que no este trabajando eso to-theboy that no is-SUBJ working that 'the boy that is not working on that'

(Maria Rosa, 3:11)

b a otra gallina, a la que este poniendo to other hen, to the that is-SUBJ putting 'the other hen, the one that is laying baby-eggs'

huevos de bebe eggs of baby (Maria Rosa, 3511)

78

PE"REZ-LEROUX

The same children who produced the definite + subjunctive response produced explanations that suggested that they were attributing existence to the referent, despite all the biases against that interpretation which had been built into the stories. These reality-biased explanations that the children provided often had a definite + indicative structure, as shown in (15): (15)

a. a la rana. a la que estd brincando to the frog to the that is-IND jumping 'the frog, the one that is jumping'

(Jose Tomas, 5510)

Other peculiar responses included negating the search in the story, as in (16), or going against the facts, as in (17), where the child denies the story's account that the mother was not going to be reading the book. (16) a. a nadie, porque nadie to nobody, because nobody 'nobody, because nobody is there'

no not

estd is-IND

ahi there

(Gaby, 358)

b. a nadie, porque todo el mundo no pinta carritos to nobody, because all the world not paint-IND little-cars 'nobody, because nobody would paint little cars' (Gabriela, 5511) (17) a. a la mama, para que le lea el cuento to the mother, for that her-DAT read-SUBJ the story 'the mother, to read her the story" (Maria Rosa, 3511) b. a la mama, porque no estd to the mother, because not is 'the mother, because she is not busy'

ocupada (Raul, 5:5) busy

I suggested then the possibility that, for children who produced such responses in particular, an individual's desire for something (which was the basis for the elicitation story) had to translate into the existence of the thing. Study II: Production of Subjunctive Relatives and Theory of Mind A follow-up study was designed to explore whether the failure of younger children to produce subjunctive relatives was due to constraints on the interpretation of the search as referring to a nonactual entity (Perez-Leroux, 1998). The study exam­ ined the correlation between theory of mind and production of subjunctive rela­ tive clauses. In this study, 22 children between the ages of 350 and 6;o were given the same eight stories as in the earlier elicitation protocol for subjunctive relative clauses, this time accompanied by two items of the standard action-prediction protocol used to investigate false beliefs. The stories were similar to the wellknown Maxi and the chocolate cake story, also known as the 'unseen displace­ ment' story in the theory of mind literature (Wimmer & Perner, 1983).

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

79

TABL E 4.2 Observed Counts of Children According to Performance on the False Belief Task and Number of Subjunctive Relatives They Produced Number ofSRCs produced False belief test Failed both Pass one Pass both

6

0

1

2

3

4

5

4 3

o 1

O

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

2

O

4

1 1

0 2

1

3

(18) Unseen displacement story I will show you what the bunnies do. This is mother Rabbit and this is little Rabbit. Mother Rabbit put her carrot in the refrigerator. When she was not in, Baby came and put it under the table. Prompt: When the mother comes back, where will she look for her carrot? Table 4.2 presents the number of children classified according to their perfor­ mance in the theory of mind task (failed both/passed one/passed both) and their performance in the subjunctive relative elicitation task (as measured by the number of subjunctive relatives produced). As this table indicates, not a single child who failed both tests of theory of mind was able to produce a sub­ junctive relative clause. The overall results revealed a modest positive association between children's age and their ability to pass the cognitive test, as measured by a point biserial correlation coefficient (r = 0.4155, t = 2.04286, df= 20, p < 0.05). However, the correlation between age and ability to produce a subjunctive rela­ tive clause, although positive, was not statistically reliable (r= 0.35 t= 1.67093, df= 20, p > 0.05). The strongest result of the study was the high correlation be­ tween ability to pass the cognitive test and ability to produce subjunctive relative clause, as measured by the number of relative clauses produced by each child. The degree of association between passing the cognitive test and producing sub­ junctive relative clauses was measured using Goodman and Kruskal's (1979) gamma coefficient, a measure of association recommended for categorical or ordinal measures (Agresti, 1984). The number of relative clauses produced was treated as an ordinal measure given the small number of possible outcomes (not producing, producing one, two, three, etc.). The analysis revealed a very strong correlation between ability to pass the cognitive test and ability to produce sub­ junctive relative clause (estimated y = 0.852). These results support the view that young children's inability to produce subjunctive relatives is semantic rather than syntactic in origin. This suggests a strong link between children's ability to use the subjunctive mood in relative

80

PEREZ-LEROUX

clauses and their ability to understand false beliefs. This relationship was attributed to the same underlying representational limitations in young children. I argued that such limitation is not specific to children's folk psycho­ logy (i.e., their beliefs about others' minds), but is instead the general consequence of limitations in considering actual and nonactual worlds at once in the computation of the denotation of a given expression. Under this view, as in the position defended by deVilliers and deVilliers (in press), the basis for the developmental parallels lies in linguistic capabilities and not in the theory of mind module. They suggest that sentence subordination provides the perfect representational format to allow children to detect the possibility of a mismatch between what is said and what is the case. Note that simple error (i.e., mismatch between a simple sentence and the actual world) does not provide equally compelling evidence about the mind as does a report of a false statement, or a report of a false belief. A false statement 'there is toilet paper inside the bag', when embedded as a subordinate clause 'Mother said there is toilet paper inside the bag', may yield a sentence that is true as a whole, even if one of its components is a false statement. This would be the case, for instance, when the bag has chocolate cake, but the mother is lying about its content, and she has uttered the statement 'there is toilet paper in the bag'. This complex interaction of truth values cannot arise with simple or even conjoined clauses, which are referentially transparent, but only with the referentially opaque sentential complements (see deVilliers, 1995, for an extended discussion of the question of opacity). We return to some of these issues in later discussion. Other Issues: Modality Versus Specificity The strong correlation between the emergence of subjunctive relatives and understanding of false beliefs can be seen as evidence of the incomplete availability of semantic representations in young children. I argued that younger children, because they have a bias for representing events strictly with reference to the actual world, have failed to notice the full semantic implication of subjunctive relative clauses which refer to nonactual and nonspecific entities. There is, however, one potential problem with this account, and that is the early ability to use certain expressions that can denote nonactual situations. First, it is well known that young children are capable of understanding and using com­ mands very early, and that commands clearly refer to nonactual events. Indeed, direct and indirect commands are the contexts in which children learning Spanish first learn to use the subjunctive. This development occurs at very early ages (Hernandez-Pina, 1984; Lopez-Ornat et al., 1994). Second, purpose clauses, which also denote nonactual events, also appear earlier than subjunc­ tive relatives, something not predicted by the approach presented before.

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

81

Assuming the perspective on complexity and possible world semantics presented earlier, one may argue that commands and purpose clauses (both of which are earlier developments) can be construed in a way that is semantically less demanding than subjunctive relative clauses. One could argue that, at least in children's grammar these structures may side with the future tense and not with modality. In other words, it is plausible that young children are interpret­ ing these structures along a single timeline but not across possible worlds. If correct, this implies that for young children, commands, requests, and statements of purpose denote inevitable states of affairs, because they are assumed to be future but not divergent from the actual world. A second issue not discussed in Perez-Leroux (1998), is the question of the interaction between mood and specificity in Spanish. There, I have only considered the role of mood in disambiguating indefinites, when in fact the possibilities are most complex. Consider the following examples: (19) Indefinite/Indicative a. busco una bicicleta que tiene rueditas look a bicycle that has-IND little-wheels 'I am looking for a bicycle that has little wheels' Indefinite/Subjunctive b. busco una bicicleta que tenga rueditas look a bicycle that has-SUBJ little-wheels 'I am looking for a bicycle that has little wheels' Definite/Indicative c. busco la bicicleta que tiene rueditas look the bicycle that has-IND little-wheels 'I am looking for the bicycle that has little wheels' Definite/Subjunctive d. *busco la bicicleta que tenga rueditas look the bicycle that has-SUBJ little-wheels 'I am looking for the bicycle that has little wheels'

As mentioned earlier, mood determines the specific or nonspecific interpreta­ tion of the indefinite: (19 a) is specific, and differs from (19 c) in that the use of a definite determiner requires previous discourse mention. Example (i9b), indefinite and subjunctive, is nonspecific and does not carry a presupposition of existence. Examples such as (i9d) are interesting. Presented in isolation, they can be rejected by some speakers as odd or unusual. Otherwise, they have a reading of "unspecified selection from a definite set," as the following examples indicate:

82

PEREZ-LEROUX

(20) a. hare lo que quieras do-FUT it that want-SUBJ 'I will do whatever you want'

Guitart (1994)

b. en esta escuela expulsan al que se in this school expel to-the that CL 'in this school, whoever cheats, gets expelled' (Guitart, personal communication, November, 1996)

copie cheats-SUBJ

The interpretation of the subjunctive relative in (20 a) is future, and not specific, in the sense that it does not imply that there is a certain desire already evident for the interlocutor (indicated by the contrast between the English expressions 'whatever you want' and 'what you want'). In (2ob), the article implies a definite set (students from this particular school), but no specification within that set, nor a presupposition that there are indeed students who had cheated. Because the subjunctive relative lacks the presupposition of the indicative mood, the sentence does not give indications of the speaker's stance with regards to existence. Thus, (iob) is as compatible with a statement of past record (certain students have been expelled) as with a future threat (if there are such students, they will be expelled). The two studies presented have shown that younger children used the subjunctive mood and had relative clauses, yet failed to use the subjunctive with relatives in contexts where an adult would use them. The correlational data shows a strong relationship between the ability to combine the subjunctive mood and relative clauses with understanding of false beliefs. One limitation in these studies is that the irrealis status of the subjunctive is not considered separately from the question of specificity. Is it possible that children did not use subjunctive relatives because they were unable to perceive that the task demanded a nonspecific interpretation of the nominal? Some of the younger children in the first study produced the infrequent definite + subjunctive relatives. Those forms were not produced by the older children or by the adult controls. Use of definite determiners in this task deserves further analysis. Why are these young children assuming that the unidentified objects in the task are members of a definite set? Which of the two features of the construction—its nonspecificity or its irrealis status—causes difficulty for the children? How do children learn to reconcile both features needed to arrive at the interpretation of a nonspecific subset within a definite set? Evidence from Maratsos's (1976) study of specificity in the acquisition of English determiners is relevant to these considerations. Maratsos's data suggest that most 3- and 4-year-olds could attend to specificity in the preceding linguistic context and achieve correct use of definites and indefinites on the second mention of an NP. When asked to expand a sentence without determin­ ers, children's average accuracy in determiner selection was 94%, for both specific and nonspecific stories:

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

83

(21) Nonspecific story Once there was a man. He wanted a pet. He went to a pet store. He saw some monkeys there. So, he took monkey home. Correct response: He took a monkey home. (22) Specific story Once there was a man. He wanted a pet. He went to a pet store. He saw a monkey there. So, he took monkey home. Correct response: He took the monkey home.

Maratsos also found high levels of sensitivity to determiner use in a compre­ hension task: (23) Chair story Now this boy came and sat down in a chair. And just as he sat down (a/the) chair fell down. What happened?"

In an acting-out task, children gave between 82% to 90% correct responses to the chair story by choosing a different chair when the indefinite article was used, and the same chair when the definite article was used. These data suggest that children have an early understanding of the relation between definiteness and discourse similar to Schaeffer's (1997) data showing an early acquisition of object clitic placement in Italian, which also depends on definiteness and discourse. I would argue, however, that it is possible for children to achieve success in these tasks without full understanding of the implications of the semantics of nonspecific indefinites. Specificity and definiteness are different semantic dimensions. Understanding the distinction between definites and indefinites in (22) above only requires understanding that there is an identity of referent (i.e., that the monkey that the man saw is the same as the one he took home). With respect to the use of the indefinite in (21), all a child would need to know in order to correctly use the indefinite is that a monkey is not the same as some previously identified monkey. The nonspecific preceding context provides sufficient information for that inference, without the necessary extension to the possibility that the world contains no monkeys. Indeed, such extension is not possible in the story, given that there were monkeys in the pet store. A true nonspecific interpretation implies reference to a kind that can be made in the absence of tokens of the kind. Reanalysis of Data From Study II To further explore the interaction of specificity and theory of mind, the data of Study II was reanalyzed to see if mastery of theory of mind has an impact on the

84

PEREZ-LEROUX

number of specific interpretations that children make of the not-yet-found object in the subjunctive relative elicitation task. In order to do so, only the use of definite articles was considered, inasmuch as indefinites are in principle am­ biguous with respect to specificity. This is a reasonable approach considering the evidence from Maratsos that children understand when to use definite arti­ cles appropriately, under not only presupposition of existence but also identity of reference. The prediction is that the overuse of definite NPs, incorrect for the situations depicted in the subjunctive relative elicitation task, should decrease with development of a theory of mind. For this purpose, the responses were classified according to complexity, definiteness, and the mood of the relative clause if one was produced (simple definite: a los dalmatas 'to the dalmatians,' simple indefinite: a una tienda 'to a store,' definite+indicative: el que me gusta 'the one that I like', definite+subjunctive: la que me guste 'whichever I like', indefinite+indicative: otras que no aprietan 'others that are not tight', indefinite+subjunctive: otros que me sirvan 'some others that fit me'), and other responses, which included failure to respond, irrelevant responses, and the like. Table 4.3 presents the different types of NPs produced by each child, along with their performance on the theory of mind task. Only simple definite NPs and Definite + Indicative relatives were considered for the correlation. The Definite + Subjunctive relatives identified were ex­ cluded from the data on the basis of their special interpretation. This exclusion is not significant, because a single child in this study was responsible for producing all the Definite + Subjunctive relatives elicited. A strong negative correlation was found between passing the theory of mind test and using a definite determiner (r= -0.636,^ < 0.05). In sum, theory of mind is not only highly correlated with the ability to produce subjunctive relative clauses, but also negatively correlated with the use of definite NPs in this task. Both of these results suggest that the links between specificity, existence and mood in Spanish relative clauses deserve further exploration. Study III: Isolating Definiteness Method. A third study was designed to try to test for definiteness and mood in the production of relative clauses by Spanish-speaking children. The study consisted of three tasks. Task i tested for theory of mind development using the unseen displacement task described in (18). Task 2 targeted production of a relative clause in a nonspecific context. Rather than asking children to construe the purpose of other agents (i.e., the cook looking for the right knife), the task questioned them about things they themselves would need given specific circumstances. Thus, it aimed to focus not on the construal of other minds, but on their own mental states under alternative, counterfactual situations such as "if your shoes didn't fit, what would you look for?" As in the previous study, care

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

85

T A B L E 4.3

Numbe r of Responses Produced per Chil d Classified by Definiteness of the NP

Age

Passing Indef. NP ToM

355

0

2

3;6

i i

I 2

2

2

1

2

357 357 3!7 3!7

4;o 4;o 4:1 4;3

Indef. Indie.

Def. Subj.

o

0

0

3 o

0

o

0

i i

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

o 1

De/ NP

Indef. Subj.

5 3

o

5 6

2

0

5 o

0

2

5

i i o

0

6

2

3 3

0

Def. Indie.

Other

0

2

5

0

0

0

0

0

o

0

0

3

0

0

2

0

0

4

0

0

1 1

0

o

0

6

0

1 o

4J3 455

2 2

5 i

2 0

0

o o i

4J5

2

3

0

3

0

0

0

2

551 557

2

2

0

0

2

4 3

2 2

1

o

2

557 557

2

3

0

5

0

o o

o o 0

O

4

3

0

1

0

0

O

559

2

7

0

i

0

o

o

5;io

0

2

6

0

0

0

0

6;i

2

2

0

6

0

6;5 6;n

2

3

2

2

1

o o

0

2

5

0

3

0

o o o

o o o

0

0

2

1

0

was taken not to model the use of the subjunctive for the children. Because the items were open-ended, it was anticipated that children would give answers that avoided a relative clause. Alternative prompts to actively elicit relatives were, therefore, included in the protocol. An idealized scenario is given in (24): (24) Unspecified wish task Si esos zapatos te aprietan, y te los quitas. Buscas otro par, pero lospies te han crecidoy tambien te aprietan. Initial prompt: jQue buscarias? Avoidance response: Unas sandalias. Additional prompt: ^Y si esas tambien te aprietan, que buscarias? Target response: Unas sandalias que no aprieten.

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P^REZ-LEROUX

'Imagine that the shoes you are wearing are tight, and you take them off. If you look for another pair, but your feet have grown and all the others are also tight. Initial prompt: What would you look for? Avoidance response: Sandals. Additional prompt: And if those are also tight, what would you look for? Target response: Some sandals that are not tight.' (SUBJ)

Task 3 aimed to elicit subjunctive relatives with a definite NP, by setting up a scenario where the child had to describe an unspecified item within a definite set. This task was designed to elicit truncated relative clauses, and as in the unspecified wish task, the locus of the evaluation was the child's own mind and not that of another agent. In this task, a story such as (25) was presented along with a picture of three identical objects. In the story, it was suggested that one of the objects was qualitatively different from the others. (25) Selection from a set task Tengo tres tijeras. Creo que hay dos que no cortan, pew es posible que la tercera si. jCudl tijeras usarias tu? Target answer:

La que no corte.

'I have three scissors. I believe that there are two that cannot cut, but it is possible that the third one does. Which one would you use? Target answer:

The one that does not cut (SUBJ).

Children were presented two versions of the unseen displacement story, six versions of the unspecified desire task, and six versions of the selection from a set task. This study aimed to isolate whether it was the specificity of the sub­ junctive relatives or their nonactuality which was related to the development of a theory of mind. It also sought to simplify the linguistic task by presenting the target structure without involving the mental representation of others. Results. Children were recruited from a Montessori school in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Two groups of six children each participated in the experiment. The younger children were between the ages of 354 and 452 (mean age of 358), median age of 359). The older children were between the ages of 554 and 6;i (mean age of 5:7, median age of 5:6). Among the younger chil­ dren, four failed and two passed the theory of mind test by giving correct responses to both unseen displacement stories. Among the older group, all chil­ dren but one passed the theory of mind test. The children's responses were classified in terms of their syntactic structure (relative clause or simple NP), the mood of the relative clause if one was produced, and the definiteness of the NP. Table 4.4 presents for each child the frequency distribution of different types of response to the unspecified wish task, as well as the child's performance on the theory of mind test.

4

Subjunctive Mood in Spanish Child Relatives

87

T A B L E 4.4

Number of NP and Relative Clause Responses Given by Each Child to the Unspecified Wish Task Age

3:4 3:5 359 3!9

3;n 452 554 555

5;6 5;7 5;io 6;i

Theory of Mind Def. NP fail fail pass pass fail fail pass pass fail pass pass pass

Total

Indef. NP

Indie. Rel

Subj. Rel.

6 i

0

o

o

0

0

0

4

2

0

6

3 4

1

0

0

1

5

3 i i

0

1

0

6

0

0

o i

5

0

0

5

0

0

3

3

0

0

2

4

0

0

1

5

0

0

30

35

1

8

TABLE 4.5

Number of Definite and Indefinite NPs Produced by Children Grouped by Their Performance on the Theory of Mind Test

Failers Passers

Def. NPs

Indef. NPs

17 13

7 28

As shown in Table 4.4, the unspecified desire task was not successful in eliciting relative clauses. Children in both groups consistently produced NP responses, independently of their performance on the theory of mind test. A single child was responsible for producing 6 out of 8 subjunctive relatives produced. This child was aged 359, and had passed both stories on the theory of mind test. Another child produced a single indicative relative. Most of the responses given were very specific. For instance, to the questions about choosing a TV channel, half of the children responded: 'Channel 28'. Other scenarios such as the one about choosing new shoes and the one about finding a story to read resulted in more varied responses. The overall results reproduced previous findings regarding the positive correlation between passing theory of mind and produc­ tion of indefinite NP responses (at r = 0.55). Table 4.5 summarizes the data of production of definite and indefinite NPs grouping the children according to whether they had passed or failed the theory of mind test.

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PEREZ-LEROUX

TABLE 4.6

Number of NP and Relative Clause Responses Given by Individual Children to the Selection from a Set Task Age Theory of Mind Def. NP

Indef. NP

Indie. Rel.

Subj. Rel.

3;4

fail

5

0

3

0

355

fail pass pass fail fail pass pass fail pass pass pass

6 6

o

5 i

0

5

2

0

2

1 3

1

0

6

0

0

0

4

i i o i

5

0

2

0

3;9 3:9 3;n 4J2

554 555

s;6 5;z 5510 6;i Total

5 6 4 6 6 61

0

4

4

1

2

0

0

4

0

0

1

o

30

17

5

A chi-square test of independence of the distribution of definite and indefinite NPs revealed significant results (%2 = 9.3250, p = 0.0023), showing that children's production of definite and indefinite NPs was not evenly distrib­ uted across children when grouped according to their performance on the theory of mind test. This finding provides further evidence for the existence of an association between nonspecific interpretations and theory of mind development. The results of the third test (selection from a set) were as inconclusive as those of the second test (unspecified wish task), because the task did not succeed in eliciting sufficient number of relative clauses. Children's responses were again classified by definiteness and by mood of the relative if a relative had been produced. The data for individual children's production are presented in Table 4.6. No strong correlations were found between definiteness and theory of mind status in the selection from a set task, but none had been expected because this task was biased towards definiteness. The main question targeted by this task, to assess the use of subjunctive relatives within a definite set, was not answered because the task was not successful in eliciting subjunctive relatives. Although it lead to the production of a higher number of relative clauses than the unspecified wish task (a total of 22), the results were still insufficient in num­ bers to examine the separate contribution of specificity and mood. Only five subjunctive relatives were produced, four of them by the same child who had produced several subjunctive relatives in the other task. It seemed that, when

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there is a definite set to choose from, children preferred to refer to the items using definite determiners and indicative mood, linguistically marking the different element in the set as specific by using an indicative relative. This strat­ egy is exemplified in (26) which presents answers to a question about choosing a TV set, a pool, and a pair of scissors. (26)3. el que funciona (Ji2,6;i) the that functions-IND 'the one that works' b. el que no tiene tiburon the that not has-IND shark 'the one that has no shark'

(88,556)

c. la que corta (Cn,5;n) the that cuts-IND 'the one that cuts'

The identity of the pictures depicting the objects was apparently not sufficient to maintain the non-specific status of the element described as different in the prompt. So, knowing that two of the pools had sharks while one did not was enough to refer to the pool without sharks as specific, and to mark the clause accordingly with the use of the indicative. Discussion. The questions concerning the role of specificity in the acquisi­ tion of subjunctive relative clauses could not be satisfactorily addressed by the results of this study. There are two possible interpretations of the data presented here: one is methodological and the other conceptual. The methodological interpretation of the results would attribute the lack of relative clauses in the un­ specified wish task to the open-ended nature of the task questions. Furthermore, relative clauses are only reliably elicited from children when the task forces the subject to describe a contrasting entity. Typically, a successful relative clause elic­ itation task has contrasting members of a set, for instance, the dog that is sitting under the table, in contrast with the dog that the girl is walking. A successful task will have these two dogs being as similar as possible, but for the specific property targeted, which is to be expressed by the target relative clause. The search task in the first and second studies had that quality, but the unspecified wish task did not (see Perez-Leroux, 1993, for further discussion). The failure of the selection from a set task is semantic: not enough justification is provided for maintaining the nonspecific interpretation of the entity. Unlike the task used by Maratsos, in which the child could rely on the absence of previous mention to select an indefinite, this task mentioned all the elements in the set, and established that one was different from the others. A methodological interpretation of the results would assert that children failed to produce subjunctive relatives because of shortcomings of the design of the elicitation procedure.

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In contrast, from the conceptual point of view it could be argued that children inherently construe their own desires as specific, whenever possible. The contrast with the two previous studies on subjunctive relative clauses makes this interpretation unlikely. Older children had no difficulty in using the nonspecific subjunctive relatives to describe other agents' search for objects, demonstrating that they could access a full representation of epistemic modality. In the present study, we do not observe clear age effects, or theory of mind effects. Instead, there is generalized absence of effects. Furthermore, it is not clear why a search which involves a child's own mental representation should be more difficult for the conceptualization of nonspecificity than one involving someone else's mental states. On the other hand, the methodological differences between the successful and the unsuccessful task are obvious: the "search" story used in the previous studies satisfied conditions on relative clause production, and the results on specificity depended on the construal of the situation as counterfactual or not. CONCLUSIONS

Modality is among the features of human language that makes it the powerful conceptual tool that it is. Language, as Jackendoff (1997) suggested, makes possible certain types of reasoning that are more complex than would otherwise be available to us as a species. The various studies explored here support the idea that there is a complex interaction between various aspects of grammatical development, and the acquisition of the capacity to construe events as counterfactual. The study of subjunctive relative clauses in Spanish contributes a new empirical angle on this discussion. It is possible that the nature of development (linguistic as well as cognitive) is not limited to the question of the separation of the real and the unreal, of the true belief and the false one, but of how entities themselves are represented. The evidence on the late acquisition of Spanish subjunctive relatives, and of its strong associa­ tion with theory of mind cast doubt that children's early understanding of specificity is identical to that of the adult. This conclusion is clearly supported by the strong associations between the type of determiner used in the responses in Study II (definite and indefinite), and performance in the theory of mind task. In that study, it seemed (from the use of indefinites) that children were more likely to construe the referents as nonspecific when they passed theory of mind. The same trends (increased willingness to use indefinites) emerges in the data in Study III when the responses to the unspecified wish task are compared for definiteness across groups of passers and failers of the theory of mind task. However, the validity of this conclusion is limited by an inference made on ambiguous language: As we have seen, indefinites per se are ambiguous between specific and nonspecific reading. However, given that young children seem generally aware of discourse

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conditions on use of definites and indefinites (e.g., the Maratsos results), it seems a natural step to interpret these trends towards use of indefinites to depend on increased willingness to construe nonspecific referents. The crucial test for sorting definiteness and specificity may come from languages like Spanish, which allows these two properties to be marked inde­ pendently (on the determiner and on the mood of the relative). Unfortunately, the tasks employed in the third study did not produce sufficient results to warrant interpretation. Although these results are disappointing in their limita­ tions, the evidence is sufficient to keep the questions open. Do children manipulate representations about entities in a set in the same way as adults? Can children fully understand the true nature of nonspecificity, as implying the possibility of a kind in the absence of tokens? Can young children access possible worlds in their mental representation of events and entities in the same way as adults? To what extent is language able to influence cognition, and to what extent is it developmentally determined by it? The deVilliers and deVilliers research on complementation and referential opacity suggests new roads for revisiting these questions, by alerting us to the possibility that complex language may provide children with the appropriate triggers to revise their assumptions about the mind. I have proposed that understanding of the representational nature of the mind can be equated with access to multiple possible world semantics. This allows us to explore new links between language and cognition in many aspects of linguistic development. These new areas of research go beyond the understanding of belief-type complements, and into linguistic forms such as the modality markers of possibility, specificity, or of evidentiality (Aksu-Ko9, personal communication, February, 1998), which may provide additional linguistic windows for children's examination of the mind. The crosslinguistic study of the acquisition of modality provides an opportu­ nity to enrich our answers to these questions. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was supported in part bythe RGSO office of the College of Liberal Arts and the Office for Minority Faculty at the Pennsylvania State University, and by a travel grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. I thank the following individuals for their comments and suggestions: T. Alkasey, J. deVilliers, J. Guitart, J. Kroll, L. Reed, and T. Roeper. I also thank I. Perez for her assistance in data gathering, and the children and teachers of the Hogar Montessori de Santo Domingo, for their cheerful cooperation with the study. REFERENCES Agresti, A. (1984). Analysis of ordinal categorical data. New York: J. Wiley. Bach, E. (1989). Informal lectures on formal semantics. Albany: SUNY Press. Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a "Theory of Mind"? Cognition, 21,37-46.

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Blake, R. (1980). The acquisition of mood selection among Spanish-speaking children: Ages 4 to 12. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Blake, R. (1983). Mood selection among Spanish-speaking children. The Bilingual Review, 10, 21-32. Bloom, P. (1997). Intentionality and word learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, i, 9-12. Bybee, J. (1988). The diachronic dimension in explanation. In J. Hawkins (Ed.), Explaining language universals (pp. 350-379). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Chung, S., & Timberlake, A. (1985). Tense, mood and aspect. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (Vol. Ill, pp. 202-258). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. deVilliers, J. (19 95). Questioning minds and answering machines. In D. MacLaughin & S. MacEwen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Boston University Conferences on Language Development (pp. 20-36). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. deVilliers, J., & deVilliers, P. (in press). Linguistic determinism and false belief. In P. Mitchell & K. Riggs (Eds.), Children's reasoning and the mind. Hove, England: Psychology Press. Fodor, J. D., & Sag, I. (1982). Referential and quantificational indefinites.Linguistics and Philosophy, 5.355-398Goodman, L., & Kruskal, W. (1979). Measures of association for cross classifications. New York: Springer-Verlag. Guitart, J. (1994). The NP-based, class/member analysis of mood choice in Spanish relative clauses. In P. Hashemipour, R. Maldonado, & M. v. Naerssen (Eds.), Festchrift in Honor of Tracy D. Terrell (pp. 385-398). New York: McGraw-Hill. Hernandez-Pina, F. (1984). Teorias psicolinguisticas y su aplicacion a la adquisicion del espanol como lengua materna. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Hewitt, L. (19 97). Theory of mind and pragmatic language disability in autism: Discourse-analytic ev­ idence. Unpublished manuscript. Pennsylvania State University. Hirst, W., & Weil, J. (1982). Acquisition of epistemic and deontic meaning of modals. Journal of Child Language, 9, 6 59—6 6 6. loup, G. (1977). Specificity and the interpretation of quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy i, 233-245Jackendoff, R. (1997). The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Johnston, J. (1985). Cognitive prerequisites: The evidence from children learning English. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2: Theoretical issues, (pp. 961-100 4). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Locke, J. (1993). The child's path to spoken language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lopez-Ornat, S., Fernandez, A., Gallo, P., & Mariscal, S. (1994). La adquisicion de la lengua espanola [The acquisition of the Spanish language]. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Maratsos, M. (1976). The use of definite and indefinite reference in young children. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Martinich, A. P. (Ed.). (1985). The philosophy of language. New York: Oxford University Press. Naharro, M. A. (1996). La adquisici6n del subjuntivo espanol en lengua materna [The acquisition of the subjunctive in the mother tongue]. In M. P£rez-Pereira (Ed.), Estudios sobre la adquisicidn del castellano, Catalan, eusquera y gallego [Studies of the acquisition of Castillian, Catalan, Basque, and Galician] (pp. 217-229). Santiago de Compostela: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Santiago. Papafragou, A. (1998). Modality and metarepresentation. In A. Greenhill, M. Hughes, H. Littlefield, & H. Wash (Eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2, pp. 610-620). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Perez-Leroux, A. T. (1993). Empty categories and the acquisition of WH-movement. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts. Perez-Leroux, A. T. (1998). The acquisition of mood selection in Spanish relative clauses. Journalof

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Child Language, 25, 585-6 o 4. Riggs, K. J., Peterson, D. M., Robinson, E. J., & Mitchell, P. (1998). Are errors in false belief tasks symptomatic of a broader difficulty with counterfactuality. Cognitive Development.^, 73-90. Rivero, M. L. (1990). Especifkidad y existencia [Specificity and existence]. In I. Bosque (Ed.), Indicative y subjuntivo (pp. 261-279). Madrid: Taurus. Schaeffer, J. (1997). Direct object scrambling in Dutch and Italian child language. Unpublished doc­ toral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Stephany, U. (1986). Modality. In P. Fletcher & M. Carman (Eds.), Language acquisition: Studies in first language development (2nd ed., pp. 375-400). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Tager-Flusberg, H. (1997). The role of theory of mind in language acquisition: Contributions from the study of autism. In L. B. Adamson & M. A. Romski (Eds.), Research in communication and language disorders: Contribution to theories of language development (pp. 133-158). Baltimore: Paul Brookes. Wellman, H. (1990). The child's theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constranining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition, 13,103-128. Wimmer, H., & Weichbold, V. (1994). Children's theory of mind: Fodor's heuristics examined. Cognition, 53, 45-57-

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A Developmental Perspective on Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

C L A U D I N E DAY

Universite de Paris 5, France

Language researchers have long studied the representative function of language, that is, its use to describe the facts and phenomena of the world. Many valuable analyses investigating the formal aspects of linguistic systems show that phonological, morphological, and syntactic regularities are inade­ quate for clarifying the complexity of language activity. Recent developments in functional approaches to language and progress in interactionist or pragmatic research have put new emphasis on communicative function. Language use, then, may be considered as a form of social conduct, and the meaning of linguistic expressions as built within the interpersonal dimension. This is a dynamic process achieved by the joint constructive activity of those taking part in communicative interaction. Advances in linguistic theory have made possible not only an account of the plurifunctionality of linguistic terms but also of their polysemy and the ambiguities thus generated. This is an opportune entry into the study of meaning. An important notional category which lies at the interface of meaning and use is modality. In addition to referential and predicative operations, using language involves modalization, which consists of imposing a modal value on the sentence. Like some other aspects of language, modality is difficult to define because its expression involves ambiguity. Nevertheless, different definitions converge on a set of core properties characterizing this category. First, modality involves the qualification of predications either as pure and simple facts, or as suppositions, wishes, suspicions, and so forth. Modality is then expressed by the indicative mood implying certainty or by the conditional mood indicating uncertainty or contingency. Second, expression of modality involves a kind of commitment by the speaker to the truth or obligation entailed in a sentence. This is expressed by sentences with grammatical structures such as the declarative, the interrogative, or the imperative, which inform the addressee about the illocutionary force of the modal utterance. And, finally, modality is 95

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involved in the expression of statements, wishes, questions, commands, protests, and so forth, which characterize relationships between speakers. That is, modality refers to the pragmatic dimension as well. Modalization, a behavior that concerns the relations between thought and language, has been of particular interest to the psychologist and the linguist, who both aim at a better understanding of modal functions and their different forms of expression. Linguistic and psychological studies of modality are grounded in modal logic, with an emphasis on epistemic and deontic (or root) meanings (Coates, 1983; Darrault, 1976; David & Kleiber, 1983; Kronning, 1996; Martin, 1983; Stephany, 1986,1993). The former refers to the speaker's state of knowledge (to know, to suppose, to wonder, etc.) and the latter codes the speaker's relations to actions (permissions, prohibitions, obligations, etc.). The semantic field of modality is a fruitful ground for investigating language ambiguity inasmuch as exact interpretations depend on grammatical forms such as mood, tense, negation (Lyons, 1968,1977; Palmer, 1977,1979,1986) as well as on contextual features such as speech acts (Boyd & Thome, 1974). Languages possess a number of devices (e.g., adverbial expressions, verbs of propositional attitude, modal verbs) to express a single modal meaning. Moreover, the same linguistic marker can encompass several modal meanings, for example, both epistemic and deontic. Indeed, linguists have emphasized that polysemy creates ambiguity. There are two main trends in analyzing modal meanings. On the one hand, there are analyses that consider modals as poly­ semous. Coates (1983) establishes different types of polysemy (ambiguity, gradience, merger) that can account for the relations between forms and meanings. In addition, Larreya (1984) regards modal terms as "linguistic expressions that are linked together as parts of an organized set" (p. 24). For that reason, although there is polysemy, there is no real modal ambiguity. On the other hand, there are analyses which aim to uncover an underlying unity in the different meanings of modal terms. For example, Tregidgo (1982) argued that "desire or will... is the basic concept in all the deontic-epistemic modals" (p. 91). Perkins (1987) stated that "modality can be seen as a three-place rela­ tionship between the speaker, the set of circumstances and the proposition" (p. 90). Because the precise nature of the circumstances as well as the relation­ ship between them and the proposition are not lexically coded, a modal expression is considered ambiguous. According to Groefsema (1995), the core meaning of modals is a logical form which "has to be enriched in different ways" so as to create particular interpretations (p. 64). Search for unity is also observed in studies on the French language: Culioli (1986) and Fuchs (1988) assumed that modal meanings are built on a semantic basis. The construction is interpreted in the discursive situation in which the speaker and the addressee exploit the stability as well as the flexibility of linguistic expressions. Despite these different views, a consensus emerges, accepting that modality reflects the speaker's involvement in the sentence.

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Psychologists, on the other hand, have mainly been interested in the development of modal concepts as well as the construction of modal reasoning by the child (Byrnes & Beilin, 1987,1991; Byrnes & Overton, 1986; Fabricius, Sophian, & Wellman, 1987; Horobin & Acredolo, 1989; Pieraut-Le Bonniec, 1974; Somerville, Hadkinson, & Greenberg, 1979; Sophian & Somerville, 1988). Various studies show that children master epistemic modals expressing certainty earlier than those expressing uncertainty. Some studies investigate the speaker's cognitive representations involved in different knowledge and belief states. This research deals especially with the presuppositions of mental verbs such as know, believe, and guess, most focusing on their comprehension by young English- or French-speaking children (Abbeduto & Rosenberg, 1985; Harris, 1975; Johnson & Maratsos, 1977; Johnson & Wellman, 1980; Lehalle & Jouen, 1978; Mac Namara, Baker, & Olson, 1976; Miscione, Marvin, O'Brien & Greenberg, 1978; Moore, Bryant, & Furrow, 1989; Moore & Davidge, 1989; Moore, Furrow, Chiasson, & Patriquin, 1994; Oleron & Legros, 1977, 1986; Perner & Wimmer, 1985; Shatz, Wellman, & Silber, 1983; Wellman & Estes, 1987; Wellman & Johnson, 1979). The mental organization of cognitive verbs in English-speaking children older than age 8 and adults is investigated by Schwanenflugel, Fabricius, and Noyes (1996). Other studies emphasize the cognitive operations associated with the use of mental verbs as well as the progressive construction of the notions of certainty and uncertainty by French-speaking children (Bassano, 1982, 19903, i99ob; Bassano & Champaud, 1983; Bassano, Hickmann, & Champaud, 1992; Champaud, Bassano, & Hickmann, 1993). Still others concern modal sentences with the modal verbs (can, may, must, should, etc.) used by English-speaking children (Coates, 1988; Hirst & Weil, 1982; Major, 1974; Moore, Pure, & Furrow, 1990; Perkins, 1983). A few studies explore children's understanding of modal verbs in languages other than English, such as German (Hoffman, 1986, cited in Stephany, 1993), Mandarin (Guo, 1992, 1993, 1995) and French (BerthoudPapandropoulou & Kilcher, 1997; Kilcher, 1992). These studies have revealed a developmental pattern which shows that use of modal expressions progresses gradually with age. Many have proposed that modal phrases are arranged on a semantic scale involving relative strength of certainty or coercion (Hirst & Weil, 1982; Hoffner, Cantor, & Badzinski, 1990). Yet other research suggests that these expressions are organized in terms of con­ textual and pragmatic relations between psychological and world states (Oleron & Legros, 1986). Various factors such as taking into account the results of an ac­ tion (Miscione et al., 1978), refusal to believe in the factuality of an event without minimal knowledge about it (Bassano, 1982), ability to accept the vagueness of epistemic states (Hickmann, Champaud, & Basssano, 1993), marking certainty (Moore et al., 1989), interpersonal and discursive relations (Guo, 1995), and inferential abilities linked to metalinguistic skills, all contribute to the use of modal expressions (Berthoud-Papandropulou &

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Kilcher, 1997). This richness of variables may explain their complexity and late comprehension, not observed in children younger than age 6. In fact, a major observation revealed by this body of research is the beginning of a diversity in modal expressions at age six, and their full mastery around age 12. Many studies show that use of modal terms appears early in children's language, at about 3 years of age (Oleron & Legros 1977, 1986; Shatz et al., 1983, Stephany, 1986). Yet, other research points to a later stage in the appro­ priation of modal expressions (Berthoud-Papandropoulou & Kilcher, 1997; Coates, 1988; Hickmann et al., 1993; Schwanenflugel et al., 1996). In our opinion, the early use of modal expressions provides the initial grounds from which, in middle childhood, evolves competence of a more differentiated sys­ tem of modality. The focus of interest in this chapter is the use of modal terms in relation to reflexive abilities in school children's language. In the present study we investigate the comprehension of modal terms by children aged 6 to 12. From a psychological standpoint, we argue that modal ex­ pressions involve cognitive operations which refer to the speaker's subjectivity as well as contextual, pragmatic, and interpersonal dimensions. They are a means of expressing the speaker's commitment to the proposition in her or his utter­ ance and of implicitly informing the addresse about the illocutionary force the utterance holds. As such, modal expressions are also part of social interactions. From this perspective, we devised three comprehension tasks and prompted children aged 6 and older to reflect at the metalinguistic level about utterances containing a modal marker. Our purpose was to determine the relationship between the developmental course of metalinguistic skills and children's level of comprehension of modal utterances. In our opinion, a developmental study of metalinguistic abilities is likely to reveal some aspects of thought that will shed light on our understanding of modal meanings in language. S T U D Y i: V A L I D I T Y O F A L I N E A R L Y O R G A N I Z E D M E N T A L S C A L E F O R T H E C O M P R E H E N S I O N O F MO D A L V E R B S

The first aim of the study is to investigate the cognitive processes involved in the comprehension of the epistemic and deontic meanings of the French modal verbs powvoir'may, might' and devoir 'must, should' in order to determine the possible existence of a linearly organized mental representation in relation to these verbs. We assume that "polysemy could be represented in a mental lexicon by a single lexical entry that receives different interpretations depending on the context in which the word is used," in line with Hirst and Weil's (1982, p. 660) study. We also assume that the two mental representations associated with epis­ temic and deontic meanings evolve simultaneously thanks to similar cognitive processes. The second purpose of the study is to analyze the comments produced by children to find out more about their understanding of the mean­ ing of these modal terms.

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99

The epistemic and deontic meanings of the modal terms are assumed to be mentally represented according to their relative strength (likelihood or coercion). This representation (Hirst & Weil, 1982; Parret, 1976; Sueur, 1983) is assumed to be built progressively with age such that the modals are gradually arranged in the following linear order of decreasing strength: doit(s) - devrait(s) -peut(x) -pourrait(s) 'must - should - may - might'

If we assume that differences in the organization of the mental representation underlying the comprehension of modal utterances correspond to differences in the understanding of the meaning of modal markers, then this should be apparent in children's responses. Method Sample. The sample consisted of 112 children, aged 6 to 12 years, with 16 subjects per age group (mean ages 656, 756, 8;2, 957, 1054, 1157, 1257 and age ranges 6;i-6;io, 751-7510, 850-8510, 952-9511, 1050-10511, 1151-11511, 1251-1350) and 280 adults (mean age 2156 and age range 1754-2358). Procedure. The experimental procedure was a French adaptation of Hirst and Weil's (1982) study (for more details, see Day, i996b). The children were tested individually, whereas the adults were tested collectively. The subjects were presented items containing two utterances that differed in the verb form and were asked to decide (a) which of the two utterances corresponded to a more pressing invitation, in the deontic condition (Example i), and (b) which of the two utterances corresponded to a higher likelihood of finding a hidden object, in the epistemic condition (Example 2). In this condition, we added the assertive sentence with est 'is' which is assumed to have a stronger implication than either type of modal sentence. To control for the effects of order of presentation of statements corresponding to the correct response several series of statements were generated and counterbalanced across subjects. (i) Deontic Condition a. Child item: tu X aller jouer dans la piece bleue—tu Y aller jouer dans la piece jaune you X go play in the room blue—you Y go play in the room yellow 'you should go play in the blue room—you must go play in the yellow room' b. Adult item: tu X aller dans le jardin—tu Y aller dans le salon you X go into the garden—you Y go into the sitting room. 'you should go out in the yard—you must go in the living room'

TOO

DAY

X and Y stand for one of the following modal verb forms: dois 'must', devrais 'should', peux 'may', pourrais 'might' (2) Epistemic Condition a. Child item: la de X sous le chapeau vert—la de Y sous le chapeau rouge the key X under the hat green—the key Y under the hat red 'the key should be under the green hat—the key must be under the red hat' b. Adult item: I'objet "a" X sur (a cote de, dans) I'objet "b"—I'objet "a" Y sur (a cote de, dans) I'objet "b" le crayon devrait etre a cote de la revue—le crayon doit etrepres du Hvre the object "a" X on (near, in) the object "b"—the object "a" Y on (near, in) the object "b" 'the pencil should be near the review—the pencil must be near the book' X and Y stand for one of the following modal expressions: doit etre'must be, devrait etre 'should be', pent etre 'may be', pourrait etre 'might be' or the assertive verb est'is'.

For each response, the children, but not the adults, were asked, "Why did you choose that sentence?" or "Why didn't you choose any sentence?" Then they were asked to comment upon their responses. Coding. Two types of data were treated in the analyses. The first type con­ sisted of responses coded as chosen/not chosen for each item in the epistemic and deontic conditions. Two different analyses were carried out on this data. One involved the analysis of responses by item and age, and aimed at uncover­ ing the semantic representation underlying modal verb comprehension. The other took into account the individual patterns of response given by each subject in order to determine the presence of a linear mental representation and its possible evolution. The second type of data consisted of each child's answers in response to the adult probes, which were coded as comment/no comment. Results Analysis of Forced Choice Responses. The results of these analyses are presented here in two subsections (see Day, 1996 b; Day & Caron, 1991 for more detailed results). Comprehension o/pouvoir 'may-might' and devoir 'must-should. From a developmental point of view, it is observed that the understanding of the two verb forms evolves gradually with age. Table 5.1 presents the results of a binomial test, at p < .05. Depending on the number of subjects per age, we

5

Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

101

T A B L E 5.1

Distribution of Subjects who Made the Expected Choice by Item1 and by Age (The expected choice is italicized in the table). Epistemic Condition

Age 6

7

«

9

10

11

12

Adults

13* 11

14*

15*

230* 244* 229* 230*

Item E-Pr E-Pe £-Dr £-De De-Pe Dr-Pr De-Pr Dr-Pe De-Dr Pe-Pr

12*'

13*

11

15*

11

12*

12*

7 8

11

15* 16*

10

13* 11

7

12*

12*

10

12*

8

13* 14*

9 11

10

12*

13*

8

12*

12*

9

9

6

10

9

5

4

8

13*

13* 14* 11

14* 14*

15* 14*

14*

H*

12*

14*

221*

11

11

12*

201*

10

13*

12*

206*

13* 6

10 13* 8

12*

163*

9

186*

5

136

Adults

8

Deontic Condition

Age 8

9

10

11

12

10

13*

H*

16*

218*

10

12*

15* 11

16*

10

14*

12*

210*

10

10

16*

12*

15*

10 11 4

10

11

12*

13*

11

15* 14* 16*

216*

7 7 7

7

5

6

7

8 8 6 8

Item De-Pe Dr-Pr De-Pr Dr-Pe De-Dr Pe-Pr

7 8

,

15*

11

7

183* 202* 127

1 Items are coded according to verbal forms which were included to sentences: E = est'is', Pr = conditional form of pouvoir'might', Pe = indicative form of powvoir'may', Dr = conditional form of devoir'should', De = indicative form of devoir'must1. 2

* reveals a significant effect.

found a significant effect when at least 12 children or 153 adults chose one of the two sentences that form an item. Under the epistemic condition, 6-year-old children chose assertive statements containing the verb est 'is' more frequently than statements containing the verb pouvoir 'may' and 'might'. They distinguished the assertive

102

DAY

form from the conditional pourrait 'might', and 7-year-olds distinguished both from the indicative form pent 'may'. The distinction between assertive statements and statements containing devoir'must' and 'should' began at age 7 and was established at age 8 for the conditional form devrait 'should'. It was taken for granted at age 9 for both the indicative and conditional forms doit and devrait 'must' and 'should'. The distinction between the two different modals is also gradually acquired: 7-year-olds differentiated the verbs pouvoir and devoir when both were in the indicative mood, as in doit 'must' and pent 'may', and when both were in the conditional mood, as in devrait 'should' and pourrait 'might'. Starting at age 9, lexical differences and moods were considered simultaneously. A clear preference appeared at this point: Statements with devoir'must' and 'should' were chosen much more often than those with pouvoir 'may' and 'might' regardless of mood, suggesting that 9-year-olds associated a stronger force with devoir 'must' and 'should' than with pouvoir 'may' and 'might'. Finally, children had difficulty in making the distinction between the moods of the same verb, for example, doit versus devrait 'must' versus 'should' and pent versus pourrait 'may' versus 'might,' while adults made this distinction clearly for devoir 'must' versus 'should' although not for pouvoir'may' and 'might'. Under the deontic condition, the two modal verbs pouvoir and devoir were differentiated after age 8 when both were in the indicative: dois versus peux 'must' versus 'may'. Then, after age 9, they were differentiated when both were in the conditional: devrais versus pourrais 'should' versus 'might'. From that age onwards, the indicative/conditional distinction of the verb devoir 'must' and 'should' was made. To sum up, within epistemic modality, when modals were compared with the assertive verb, mood distinctions relevant to pouvoir'may and 'might' (referring to possibilty) were made earlier than mood distinctions relevant to devoir'must' and 'should' (referring to necessity). The development of the understanding of the difference between the two modal verbs devoir/pouvoir 'must' and 'should-may' and 'might' showed the same patterns in the epistemic and deontic domains. At the beginning, the two verbs were only lexically differenti­ ated, that is, when both were in the indicative or in the conditional form. Yet an age difference was observed. A distinction between the epistemic modals was made by 7-year-olds when they were both in the indicative or conditional form. This distinction was made later and progressively for deontic modals: at age 8 for the indicative mood, and at age 9 for the conditional mood. Such a differ­ ence between the processing of epistemic and deontic meanings of modal verbs may have been due to the introduction of assertive statements in the epistemic values. Tenonciation d'une modalite est . . . le signe d'une degradation de la force de 1'assertion" [Stating a modality is ... the indication of decreasing the strength of the assertion] (Sueur, 1983, p. 172) and therefore poses a strong contrast to the child, helping him or her to make subtle distinctions among

5

Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

103

TABLE 5-2

Distribution (and Percentage) of Subjects by Level1 of Mental Representation and by Age Group (6-8 vs. 9-12). Epistemic Condition 6-8 Level i Level 2 Level 3

10

(21%)

25

(52%)

Total

48

i

13 (27%)

Deontic Condition

Age Group 9-12 7 (11%)

6-8

9-12 i (1%)

44(69%)

16 (33%) 21 (43%) 12 (24%)

49 (78%)

64

49

63

13

(20%)

13

(21%)

Level i: unstable answers. Level 2: bipolar functioning mode. Level 3: Linear functioning mode.

modal verbs. However, 9-year-old children could consider simultaneously lexical and mood distinctions for both deontic and epistemic meanings of pouvoir'may' and 'might' and devoir'must' and 'should'. Nature of the Underlying Mental Representation. The analyses revealed that a linearly organized mental representation underlying the comprehension of the French modals pouvoir 'may-might' and devoir 'must-should' is built through a two-stage process. Table 5.2 presents the distribution of children's re­ sponses by level of mental representation and by age. There was a significant effect of age groups (% 2 (2) = 19 in the epistemic condition and % 2 ( 2 ) = 36 in the deontic one, p < .05). First, a bipolar organization was observed to prevail between ages 6 and 8 (Level 2). For epistemic values, 52% of the subjects either differentiated assertive statements from statements containing pouvoir 'may' and 'might' or from statements containing devoir 'must' and 'should', or they differentiated statements with pouvoir'may and 'might' from those containing devoir'must' and 'should'. For deontic values, 43% of children distinguished statements with devoir 'must' and 'should' from those with pouvoir 'may' and 'might'. Second, a three-term linear representation was observed after age 9 (Level 3), consequent to certain semantic shifts. For the epistemic values, devoir'must' and 'should' broke away from one of the two poles (the assertive pole or the 'may-might' pole). This was observed in 69% of the subjects. For the deontic values, the two forms of devoir'must' and 'should' were differentiated by 78% of the children. At this point, it is worth noting that only about one fourth of the subjects older than 9 (children and adults) gave responses suggesting a four- or five-term representation. All things considered, a linear mental scale of modal verb semantics is progressively built with age. The results support the hypothesis stated at the

1O4

DAY

beginning that the mental representation associated with modal terms is built progressively. For epistemic and deontic values, a move from a two-term to a three-term organization is observed in the responses of most subjects. A finer organization appears only in 25% of subjects beyond age 9. Analysis of Children's Verbal Productions. These results are derived from the second type of data consisting of children's justifications of choice of utterance classified into the following categories (see Day, 19963 for more details): (i)

No comment The child says he or she doesn't know, or refers to irrelevant extralinguistic criteria, as illustrated in Example (3). (3) 7-year-old, in response to an item with utterances contrasting the epistemic values of doit 'must' and powrrazY'might': parce quej'aime le rouge et c'est clair 'because I like red and it's light'

(ii) Comments are of two types: (a.) Paraphrases: The child either repeats the utterance verbatim or modifies it by eliminating, adding, or replacing the modal, or by introducing an adverbial form. The utterance can also be embedded in a proposition containing a verb of propositional attitude. These types of paraphrases are not necessarily mutually exclusive. An example is presented in (4): (4) 10 -year-old, in response to an item with utterances contrasting the deontic values of dois 'must' and pourrais'might': parce que "tu dois alter jouer dans la piece bleue" euh . . . on dit que tu vas y aller, et "tu devrais aller dans la piece jaune," on dit "peut-etre" 'because "you must go and play in the blue room" uh . . . it says you're going to go there, and "you might go and play in the yellow room," it says "maybe"' (b.) Functional meaning: The child specifies the function of the utterance in the situation in which it is used by referring to it with appropriate linguistic terminology (such as proposition, hypothesis, order, advice, and so forth) which shows that she or he is thinking about and judging the suitability of the message to the communicative context. These responses show metalinguistic reflection, as illustrated in Example (5) below. (5) 10 -year-old, in response to an item with utterances contrasting the epistemic values of est 'is' and peut'msy: parce que sous le chapeau rouge, c'est une phrase affirmative, et sous le chapeau vert, on nest pas sur du toutpuisquon dit "peut-etre" because under the red hat, it's an affirmative sentence, and under the green hat, we're not at all sure since it says "maybe"'

5

Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

105

T A B L E 5.3

Distribution of Verbal Productions by Response Type, by Comment Type and by Item1

n ch+

n ch-

n nch

Item E-Pe E-Pr E-De E-Dr

Verbal Productions P P P ch+ chnch

f

f

ch+

ch-

nch

f

Epistemic Values

11

11

0

12

8

0

12

15

i

31

36

25 32 24

2

0

48

9

0

3 5

0

45 47

8

o i

45

4 7 7

0

9 6

i o 1

26

6

2

22

6 7

44 40 32

12

3 5 5

11

4 3 5 7

10

26

24

13

12

67

23

404

86

36

11

9

0

16

10

3

15

12

0

13

9

12

10

i o

14 14

2

17

12

8

7

112

15

246

De-Pe De-Pr Dr-Pe Dr-Pr De-Dr Pe-Pr

16

Total

131

13

41 38

7

9

4 6

Deontic Values De-Pe De-Pr Dr-Pe Dr-Pr De-Dr Pe-Pr Total

29

1

2

50

4

0

50

3

0

3

2

19 15

2

41 44 54

7

7 7 10

12

7

22

5 7 11

0

13

5 5 4 4 5

1

7

17 19

16

67

40

111

24

17

261

37

23

9 8

3 6

11

15 11 11

15 82

13 17 12 14

2

5

i Items are coded according to verbal forms which were included to sentences: E = est'is', Pr = conditional form or poMVoir'might', Pe = indicative form of pouvoir'may', Dr = conditional form of cfevoi'r'should', De = indicative form of devoir'must'. Note: ch+ = expected choise; ch- = nonexpected choice; nch = no choice; n = no comment; P = paraphrase; F = functional meaning.

First, we consider whether or not children commented on their responses to a given item. For the entire sample and all items pooled, the data revealed that children had a strong tendency to comment on their answers. However, there was a significant difference between the proportion of responses that received a

1O6

DAY

FIG. 5.1. Percentage of type of verbal production by age group (6 to 8 vs. 9 to 12). Types of verbal production: comment (ri), paraphrase (p), functional meaning (/).

comment in the epistemic and deontic conditions (%2 (i) = 6.7, p < .05, 77% and 71% in the epistemic and deontic conditions, respectively, see Table 5.3). For all subjects pooled, there was a link between the type of answer given in the forced choice task and the likelihood of making a comment. In accordance with our linearity hypothesis, the expected answers yielded a substantial verbaliza­ tion with equivalent frequencies for the epistemic and deontic values of the utterances (83%). In contrast, nonexpected answers gave rise to significantly fewer comments (54% for all epistemic and deontic items combined). The analysis also revealed an effect of age (see Fig. 5.1): For all items in both conditions, the subjects fell into two distinct groups: 6- to 8-year-olds and 9- to 12-year-olds. More choices were commented on by the older group than by the younger group (90% and 59%, respectively, under the epistemic condition, X2(i) = 153, p < .01; 83% and 39%, respectively, under the deontic condition, XX1) = 61, p < .01), and more comments referring to the functional meaning of utterances were given by the older group than by the younger group (72% and 39%, respectively, under the epistemic condition, xX1) = 84, p < .01; 82% and 39%, respectively, under the deontic condition, X2(0 = 85, p < .01). The mode of mental representation was also found to have an effect on the choices that were commented on. Subjects with a linear mode of functioning had a greater tendency to comment upon their responses than subjects with a bipolar mode, regardless of age and regardless of modal meanings (6- to 8-year-olds: 88% vs. 49% for epistemic values, X2(x) = 54-9; 73% vs. 49% for deontic values, X2(i) = n - 2 5 9-years and older: 96% vs. 85% for epistemic

5

Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

107

FIG. 5.2. Distribution of each type of verbal production as a function of modal meanigns, mental representation and age. Data are coded with the three following ele­ ments: EOT D = epistemic or deontic meaning; 2 or 3 = bipolar operating mode or three-term linear organization; 6-8 or 9-12 = children's ages.

values, x2(i) = 17.1; 90% vs. 62% for deontic values, %2(i) = 38.8,p < .05; see Fig. 5.2). Contrary to the bipolar-mode subjects, the linear-mode subjects also made more functional meaning references than paraphrases for both modal values (6-8 years: 54% vs. 24% for epistemic values, X 2 ( J ) = 23-35 56°/° v-s 33% for deontic values, X2(i) = 6.16; age 9 and older: 85% vs. 63% for deontic val­ ues, X.2(i) = 13.4; and 70% vs. 66% for epistemic values, however with no significant difference). Next, we consider the number of utterances children commented upon in a given item to find out whether the types of utterance constituting the item (modal + modal; modal + assertion) had an effect on the comments produced. Responses where both utterances were commented on were distinguished from those that referred to only one utterance (see Table 5.4). In the epistemic condi­ tion, there was a tendency to comment on only the assertion when the item contained a modal and an assertion. There was again an overall progression with age: Comments on both utterances increased from 25% at age 6 to 75% around the ages of 9 to 10. The following additional points stand out: 6-year-olds rarely commented on both utterances (between 25% and 40%), regardless of item type (modal-modal, modal-assertive) or epistemic-deontic condition.

108

DAY

T A B L E 5.4

Distribution of Comments by Number of Utterances by Age, by Epistemic vs. Deontic meaning and by Utterance Type Epistemic Meaning mod+ass mod+mod

Age

Cl

C2

Ci

C2

40 17 31

29

22

58 42

6

27

9

7 8

22

9

14

13 15 44

10

35 41 33

20

23 29

34 36 26

Total 205

153

206

11 12

33

Deontic Meaning mod+mod

11

Ci

C2

28 18

29

12

35 53 50

66

33 19 H 36 32

298

180

293

36

56

55 59

Note: One utterance (Ci) vs. both utterances (€2); utterance type (mod = modal vs. ass = assertive).

7- and 8 -year-olds commented on both utterances when the item was a two-modal one both in the epistemic and the deontic conditions (approximately 60%). Majority of the comments of the 6- to 8-year-olds were paraphrases. 9 -year-olds produced a substantial number of answers with comments on both utterances (approximately 75%), regardless of item type and meaning of modal. At this age, subjects referred more often to the functional meaning of utterances. 10-year-olds did likewise for deontic values, whereas they responded like the older children for epistemic values. 11- and 12-year-olds referred mostly to functional meanings, mainly for the assertive utterance when it was presented along with a modal (only 40% of these items received two-utterance comments), and for both utterances when they contained a modal verb (approximately 60%). We also looked at how and when target statements were reproduced (repeated as a form of direct quotation or transformed) in children's comments. In the epistemic condition, 44% of the reproduced utterances which were given a functional meaning comment were repeated whereas 34% of the reproduced utterances which were commented on with a paraphrase were repeated (x^1) ~ 2 °-65> p < .05). In the deontic condition, these propor­ tions of repeated utterances for the two categories were 38% and 18%, respectively (xX1) = 5°> P < - O1 )- These findings suggest that to quote speech makes reflective activity easier for children, thus enabling them to refer to

5

Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

109

pragmatic aspects of modal expressions. The direct speech quotation enables children "to describe explicitly the reporter's understanding of the original event (e.g., motives and intentions)" (Lucy, 1993, p. 19). To sum up, children's ability to comment upon their choice between two utterances (modal + modal or modal + assertive) seems to be related to the semantic representations underlying their comprehension of the modal expres­ sions devoir'must, should' and powvozr'may, might'. Regardless of the meaning of the modal markers, two modes of functioning were observed: Some children had a bipolar mode of functioning, whereas others had a three-term mode of functioning. The difference was both quantitative and qualitative: The former made fewer comments about their answers which were mainly in the form of paraphrases; the latter generally refered to the functional meaning of the utterances. Children's ability to comment on their choice between two utterances (modal + modal or modal + assertive) appears also to be related to the form of the utterances. First, an awareness of the form of utterances was observed around age 7. In case of items constituted of two modal utterances, children more often commented on each utterance than in case of items constituted of a modal utterance and an assertion. In the latter case, they just commented on the assertion to justify the answer. It appears that in the case of two modal utterances, that is, when a within-modal choice has to be made, finer shades of meaning have to be justified in order to properly support the answer. Second, the nature of children's comments change around age 9: Paraphrases are replaced by references to functional meaning. This two-part change occurs gradually between ages 6 and 12. Nine-year-olds seem to have difficulty in handling simultaneously all the comment types and the utterance forms. After this age, children's language behavior reflects their ability to differentiate between modalized statements and assertions. It also reveals their capacity to refer to the functions of utterances in communication. Altogether, the findings illustrate the close and multidirectional linkages between semantic, formal, and pragmatic aspects of language, cognitive changes, and metalinguis­ tic abilities. Metalinguistic activity thus shows development in accordance with the gradual acquisition of language behaviors. After age 9, children are able to refer explicitly to the contextual, social, and functional dimensions of communica­ tive situations when prompted to do so. Furthermore, to quote speech appears to be a process that facilitates the appreciation of functional meanings, which are expressed with terms that refer to prepositional attitudes (e.g., beliefs, desires), speech acts (e.g., order, advice), or relationships between speakers. Hence the access to reflective thinking required for the metalinguistic awareness of modal terms can be considered as the basis for a more elaborated reflection about the pragmatic aspects of communication.

no

DAY STUDY II. M U L T I D I M E N S I O N A L MENTAL O R G A N I Z A T I O N ASSOCIATED WITH THE U N D E R S T A N D I N G OF MODAL VERBS

The previous experiment suggested that the mental representation of the meaning of modal verbs is not a simple linear semantic structure. In other words, the metalinguistic content of children's comments led to the hypothesis of a multidimensional organization. Therefore, we conducted an experiment investigating the metalinguistic abilities of children older than 9 years and adults. To account for the multidimensionality of mental representations associated with modal verb understanding, we tried to define the semantic variables that contribute to the construction of these representations. Method Sample. The sample consisted of three groups of subjects: thirty-six 10-year-olds (mean age io;o; age range 952-10;8), thirty-three n-year-olds (mean age 1154; age range 1059-1253), and forty-eight adults (mean age 2056; age range 1759-30510). Procedure. The subjects were asked to match a set of modal sentences with a set of functional terms refering to contexts of use. Nine modal statements were chosen from a semantic classification of reports suggested by Francois (1990) and studied by Verstiggel and Denhiere (1990). Each sentence repre­ sents a statement category defined by the main verb type: report of a state (three items), report of an event (two items), report of an action (two items), predication of a kind (one item), predication of a property (one item). Each sentence contains one of the following modal verbs: doit 'must', devrait'should', peut'may' and pourrait 'might'. Nineteen functional terms that refer to contexts of use and express propositional attitudes or speech acts were compiled from the expressions used by the children in their comments in the previous experiment (see Appendix i). A list consisting of 9 modal statements, and 19 functional terms was composed. To control for the effects of order of presenta­ tion, several item series with the modal statements were generated and counterbalanced across subjects. For each item, the subject had to choose from the 19 expressions at least one that suited best the meaning of each statement. Testing was done collectively. For each subject we thus obtained written data in which the modal form in each statement was associated with one (or more) functional expression descriptive of usage conditions. Results

The expressions chosen in relation to each modal sentence were analyzed by applying the binomial test (p < .05). In the n-year-old and adult data the expression "possibility" was chosen significantly more often than any of the

5

Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

m

other words. In the 10-year-old data, the effect was nearly significant. The expression "possibility" was chosen most often when the modal pouvoir 'may, might' was present in the sentence, regardless of the main verb. Adults and children associated different types of reports containing a modal verb (MOD = must, should, mayor might) with the descriptive expression "pos­ sibility." For children, predications of a kind ("Pierre MOD be Marie's brother") and of a property ("Caroline MOD be taller than Julie") made that choice more likely. For adults, the reports of a state ("Claude MOD draw") and of an event ("The lightning MOD split the tree in two parts") were additionally likely choices. However, adults associated the expression of "possibility" less frequently with reports of actions than with other reports. A factor analysis carried out on the responses revealed three dimensions in the children's data (for 10-year-olds, the percentages of the variance were 31.4%, 15.8%, and 11.6% for axes i, 2, and 3, respectively; for n-year-olds, 30.7%, 16.2%, and 11.6% for axes i, 2, and 3, respectively) and four dimensions in the data of the adults (the percentages of the variance were 28.4%, 23%, 12.6%, and 10.4% for axes i, 2, 3, and 4, respectively). The most important dimension was shared by all three groups: Modals with action verbs were opposed to modals with other verbs. Statements containing verbs of action were associated with request states (order, request, recommendation, permission). Statements containing other verbs were associated with belief states (belief, information, hypothesis). Thus, the analysis revealed a distinction between deontic and epistemic meanings. The analysis also showed a progression with age. For the 10 -year-olds, a second dimension divided sentences into two groups. One group contained reports of events linked to the expressions of "advice" and "warning," the other contained reports of action associated with the terms "wish" and "desire." At age 11 modals with action verbs were associated with relations of authority; the "order/permission" opposition corresponded to the lexical disctinction between devoir 'must' and 'should' vs. pouvoir 'may' and 'might' and it pointed to a distinction made within deontic modality. For adults, this opposition was less marked, because there was a distinction between action verbs on the basis of mood. Statements containing modals in the indicative mood expressed a necessary action (e.g., an order), whereas statements containing modals in the conditional indicated that an action was performed by choice rather than by imposition (e.g., advice). Development was observed in relation to the other verb types as well. In the data of n-year-olds, a third dimension contrasted reports of a property associ­ ated with expressions of "wish" to reports of an event or state associated with expressions of "warning." This third dimension corresponded approximately to the second dimension established in the responses of the lo-year-olds. In the adult data, a fourth dimension appeared to be a more precise factor than the other axes established in the children's responses. Indeed, this fourth dimension reveals a distinction between reports of events that were associated with the ex­

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pressions of "warning" and reports of states that were associated with the ex­ pressions of "desire" and "wish." In all three groups of subjects, the multidimensional representation was organized around the expression "possi­ bility," a term located near the point of origin of each axis. In summary, the results point to a multidimensional semantic representation involved in the comprehension of modal verbs. The major distinction was made between epistemic and deontic meanings of modals. The progressive construc­ tion by age showed that the interpretation was based on the different types of re­ lations that held between participants: The speaker's social status may determine the exercise of authority, or his or her evaluation of the circumstances as benefi­ cial for another participant in the communicative situation may play a role (see Day, 1994, for more detailed results). Thus, the relations between speakers are found to be important in the discrimination of modal meanings. Furthermore, results show that a refinement of the different dimensions of this representation is achieved by a semantic shift with age. That is, dimensions two and three in the 11-year-olds' representation become respectively dimensions three and four in the adults' representation. These developments in the semantic component allow children to gradually take into account contextual factors. On one hand, there are communicative factors that refer to the speakers' mental states (prepositional attitudes: wish, belief, etc.) or to relations between speakers (speech acts: order, advice, etc.). On the other hand, there are linguistic factors involving the differ­ entiation of modal expressions (main and modal verbs) on lexical bases, and then on morphological grounds (indicative or conditional moods). The multidimensional semantic representation of the French modal verbs powvoz'r'may' and 'might' and devoir'must' and 'should' is, thus, found to be or­ ganized around the core meaning of "possibility," which functions as the basis for the differentiation of several dimensions that involve the interrelations be­ tween the pragmatic aspects of modality and its formal means of expression. STUDY Mi: MODAL E X P R E S S I O N S IN N A R R A T I V E

The previous experiments showed that the understanding of modal verbs changes with age in accordance with a complex mental representation which is made possible by the ability to take into account contextual factors around the ages 8 and 9. This is, in turn, linked to developments in metalinguisitic abilities. To investigate more precisely the shift in language behavior that allows access to metalinguistic functioning, a third experiment based on a specific communica­ tive situation, the narrative, was conducted. Method Sample. The sample consisted of 7- and 9-year-old children, with 28 sub­ jects in each age group (mean ages 7:0, 954; age ranges 6;5~7;7, 8;6-io;4).

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T A B L E 5.5 Frequency of Recalled Clauses (Target and Nontarget) That Refer to Possible and Real Situations by Age and by Narrative Versions Age in Years

9

7 Clauses Target Nontarget Total

Recall

A

Mi+M2

Total

A

Mi+M2

Total

possible real possible real

54 15 153 71

114

168 49 476 196

60 32 170 90

108

34 323 125

44 306 142

168 76 476 232

real (%)

86 (41%)

159 (36%)

245 (38%)

122 (53%)

186 (45%)

644 (48%)

Note: A = nonmodal version; Mi and M2 = modal versions.

Procedure. A narrative from a French adaptation of Mandler and Johnson's (1977) study was used ("Le garcon": see Mandler, 1984). The story comprising an exposition scene and a two-episode event was modified into a story consist­ ing of 23 propositions (see Appendix 2). Three different versions of the narrative were built. In one version, no modal term occurred. In the other two versions, modal expressions were inserted into six clauses: One in the exposi­ tion scene, two others in the first episode, and the remaining three in the second episode. Furthermore, one clause of each episode was changed to a direct quotation. The terms introduced in these two versions were the modal verbs pouvoir 'may-might', devoir 'must-should', falloir 'need to', a modal adverb peut-etre 'perhaps', and a mental verb penser 'think'. These modals occurred in different target sentences in the two modal versions. Each child listened to one of the narratives and was then given two tasks: to tell the story again and to answer questions about the six target statements. The question for the first target item was "What is it said a b o u t . . . ?" The questions for the other sentences were "What does X say when . .. ?" and "If you had been in X's place, would you tell it in the same manner?" Children were additionally asked "Why would you say it in this way?" They were tested individually. Results

The first set of results is based on the frequency of recalled clauses in each nar­ rative (see Table 5.5). For the 7-year-olds, the recall frequencies were similar for the three narrative versions (38% of recalled clauses). The 9-year-olds recalled differentially from the nonmodal (53% of the clauses) and the modal narratives

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(45% of the clauses) (X2(i) = 3.9, p = .05). This difference was observed for the whole story, regardless of whether the statement was a target or nontarget one and regardless of its position in the story. The second set of results is based on the arguments given by the children in response to the last question "Why would you say it in this way?" asked in rela­ tion to the five target items which are part of the first and second episodes of the story. The different arguments fell into three categories. (i)

Arguments referring directly to the narrative, comprising references to the events as described in or inferred from the story, to the relationship between narrative events and personal experiences, or to the psychological states of narrative characters. An example is presented in (6). (6) parce que la voisine est plus gentille etpuis, la maman est . . . etpuis la maman est moins . . . mains gentille. parce que la maman est en colere (7 -year-old) 'because the woman neighbor is nicer and then, the mother is ... and then the mother is less . . . is less nice, because the mother is angry'

(ii) Arguments referring to speech, comprising references to the relation between the form of an utterance and the status properties of narrative characters, to the speech event in relation to the communicative situation, to personal experiences in language practices or to children's positions as persons speaking to an adult (asymmetrical relation). An example is presented in (7). (7) plus gentiment quand mime . . . parce que ca depend de son age,s'il estpetit ou \ silest grand (9-year-old) 'more pleasantly, even so ... because it depends on his age, if he is younger or older' (iii) General arguments, comprising references to an evaluation of the situation as a whole, to social relations between speakers, to social agreements or to ways of speaking in everyday life, as illustrated in Example (8). (8) parce qu'il aurait pu faire attention parce qu'il savait que c'etait pas pour lui. si fa avail etepour lui,il aurait pu faire fa. mais comme c'etait pour la voisine et qu'il ne la connaissait pas tres bien, il devait faire attention au gateau. (9 -year-old) 'because he might be careful about it because he knew that it was not for him. thus, if it was for him, he could have done as he did. but, as it was for the woman neighbour and as he does not know her very well, he should be careful about the cake' The analysis revealed a difference between the two age groups. Table 5.6 presents the distribution of argument types by age and by narrative version.

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TABL E 5.6 Distribution of Different Types of Arguments' Produced by Age and by Narrative Versions Age in Years 7

9

Arg

A

Mi

M2

Total

A

Mi

M2

Total

Na Sp+Ge

23

24 7

30 6

77 20

23

7

13

19 8

H 18

39

Total

30

31

36

97

36

27

32

95

56

Note. Na = Arguments referring directly to the narrative; Sp = Arguments referring to speech; Ge = General arguments;A = nonmodal version; Mi and M2 = modal versions.

Arguments referring to speech and general arguments were produced more fre­ quently by 9-year-olds than by /-year-olds (41% vs. 21%, respectively; %2(i) = 9.4, p < .05); younger children were actually inclined to use components from the narrative. However, we notice that arguments referring to speech were more frequent than the general arguments in both groups. These results were observed for the three narrative versions as a whole and confirm the findings from our previous experiments regarding a shift in language functioning that occurs between 7 to 9 years of age. The preponderance of speech act related responses and, to a lesser extent, of general responses in the arguments of 9-year-olds furthermore support the view that it is developments in reflective, metapragmatic ability that enables them to extract the appropriate contextual factors present in different communicative situations. CONCLUSION

We began this chapter with a report of linguistic and psychological studies that pointed to the complexity of modal expressions, a fact that makes it very likely there will be development in the use of modal terms in middle childhood. Although some studies provide evidence for the early use of modal expressions by young children, other research points to a late mastery of modal terms. In our research, we chose to approach the expression of modality within a constructivist and functional perspective. We suggested that the development of metalinguistic abilities in children would contribute to the evolution of modal expressions between 6 to 12 years. Among the different linguistic devices that serve to mark modal distinctions, we selected the French modal verbs powvoir'may' and 'might' and devoir'must' and 'should', which are known to be polysemous and ambiguous.

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Our findings revealed that the process of mastering French modal verbs entails advances in both cognitive and linguistic domains. To begin with, children younger than 9 years are less competent in understanding modal expressions than older subjects. We have shown that semantic representation of epistemic and deontic meanings underlying their use of modal verbs is not fully developed. Furthermore, children younger than 9 years refer to linguistic variables (lexical and morphological) and to pragmatic factors (prepositional attitudes, speech acts) less frequently than older children. We have also found other differences between 7- and 9-year-olds. First, although they performed better than the younger children, the recall frequencies of 9-year-olds were lower for narratives containing modal sentences than for narratives without modal terms. Second, they used metalinguistic arguments more frequently than younger children did. These arguments referred to pragmatic factors linking enunciative conditions to communicative situations. Bringing reflective abilities into operation requires the child to distance himself from the narrative situation, which may make the task of considering pragmatic factors in relation to modal expressions a conceptually difficult, taxing experience. This difficulty might explain the low recall frequencies of narratives containing modal sentences that were observed in 9-year-old children. Then we showed that an evolution in the understanding of modal verbs con­ tinues after age 9. Subjects progressively took into account linguistic factors (types of reports, lexical and morphological marks) as well as pragmatic dimensions. A mental representation associated with modal verbs appears to be characterizable in terms of a core meaning (possibility), from which several dimensions are developed gradually with age. These dimensions refer to inter­ personal relations inherent in language use. We agree with Verschueren (1999), who claims that modality expression is one of the "indicators of metapragmatic awareness" (p. 189). Our study as a whole showed that a number of semantic shifts or reorgani­ zations are observed in children between the ages of 6 and 12. Our results point to a late comprehension of French modal verbs. They support the findings of other research based on the use of modal markers (modal and mental/cognitive verbs) by French-speaking children (Berthoud-Papandropoulou & Kilcher, 19975 Champaud et al., 1993) as well as English-speaking children (Coates, 1988; Schwanenflugel et al., 1996). As a conclusion, we suggest an interpretation of modal verb use as a means to regulate social relations in language activities. The evolution of the under­ standing of modality enables children older than 9 to deal with an appropriate use of language. Children develop metalinguistic abilities that enable them to extract the relevant contextual factors present in different communicative situations.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Special thanks are extended to Miss Claire Day for her support in the writing of this chapter. REFERENCES Abbeduto, L, & Rosenberg, S. (1985). Children's knowledge of the presuppositions of Know and other cognitive verbs. Journal of Child Language, 12, 621-641. Bassano, D. (1982). Etude sur la modalite "croire." [/interpretation d'enonces avec "croire que ..." [Study on the modal verb croire 'believe.' The interperting of sentences with croire que... 'believe that. . .'] Archives de Psychologic, 50,165-190. Bassano, D. (19903). De la logique au langage: Vers une psycholinguistique de 1'enonciation [From logic to language: Towards an enunciative psycholinguistics]. Archives de Psychologie, 58, 213-234. Bassano, D. (i99ob). Developpement et organisation du langage: Le traitement d'enonces modaux chez 1'enfant [Language development and organization: Processing of modal sentences by chil­ dren]. In M. Charolles & F. Fisher (Eds.), Le discours: Representations et interpretations (pp. 199-211) Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy. Bassano, D., & Champaud, C. (1983). [.'interpretation d'enonces modaux de type assertif ("savoir que .. .") chez 1'enfant de 6 a 11 ans [The interpretation of modal sentences in an assertive form ('know that...') by 6- to n-year-old children]. L'Annee Psychologique, 8), 53-73. Bassano, D., Hickmann, M., & Champaud, C. (1992). Epistemic modality in French children's dis­ course: To be sure or not to be sure? Journal of Child Language, 19,389-413. Berthoud-Papandropoulou, I., & Kilcher, H. (1997). The role of language in the metacognitive un­ derstanding of epistemic states. Archives de Psychologie, 65,117-129. Boyd, J., & Thorne, J. P. (1974). La semantique des verbes modaux en anglais [Semantics of modal verbs in English]. Langage,34,103-121. Byrnes, J. P., & Beilin, H. (1987). The relation between causal and logical thinking in children. Paper presented at the Biennal Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD. Byrnes, J. P., & Beilin, H. (1991). The cognitive basis of uncertainty. Human Development, 34, 189-203. Byrnes, J. P., & Overton, W. F. (1986). Reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete, causal and prepositional contexts. Developmental Psychology, 22,793-799. Champaud, C., Bassano, D., & Hickmann, M. (1993). Modalite epistemique et discours rapporte chez 1'enfant francais [Epistemic modality and reported speech in French children]. In N. Dittmar & A. Reich (Eds.), Modality in language acquisition (pp. 185-209). New York: De Gruyter. Coates, J. (1983). The semantics of modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm. Coates, J. (1988). The acquisition of the meanings of modality in children aged eight and twelve. Journal of Child Language, 15,425-434. Culioli, A. (1986). Stabilite et deformabilite en linguistique [Stability and deformability in linguis­ tics]. Etudes de Lettres, Langage et Connaissances, (pp. 3-10). Universite de Lausanne. Darrault, I. (1976). Modalites logique, linguistique, semiotique [Logical, linguistic and semiotic modalities]. Langage, 43. David, J., & Kleiber, G. (Eds.). (1983). La notion semantico-logique de modalite [The semantical and logical notion of modality]. Paris: Klincksieck. Day, C. (1994). Evolution de la representation mentale de la modalite: Aspects pragmatiques de marqueurs modaux francais (le cas de "pouvoir" et "devoir") [Evolution of the mental repre­

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sentation of modality: pragmatic aspects of French modal markers (The case of pouvoir and de­ voir)]. Archives de Psychologic, 62, 247-274. Day, C. (19963). Developpement des competences metalinguistiques chez des enfants de six a douze ans: relation avec la comprehension de termes modaux [Metalinguistic ability development in 6- to 12-year-old children: Relationship with comprehension of modal terms]. Archives de Psychologie, 64, 227-254. Day, C. (19966). Understanding of the French modal verbs pouvoir "may" and "might" and devoir "must" and "should" in school children and adults. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive, 15 (5), 535-553Day, C., & Caron, J. (1991). Le developpement de la comprehension des verbes modaux "pouvoir" et "devoir" chez des enfants de six a treize ans [The development of the understanding of the French modal verbs pouvofr'may' and 'might' and devoir 'must' and 'should' by 6 - to 13-year-old children]. Archives de Psychologie, 59,5 5-6 9. Fabricius, W. V., Sophian, C., & Wellman, H. M. (1987). Young children's sensitivity to logical neces­ sity in their inferential search behavior. Child Development, 58,40 9-423. Francois, J. (1990). Classement semantique des predications et methode de psycholinguistique d'analyse propositionnelle [Semantic and predicative classification and psycholinguistic method for a propositional analysis]. Langages, 100,13-32. Fuchs, C. (1988). Representation linguistique de la polysemie grammaticale [Linguistic representa­ tion of grammatical polysemy]. T.A. Informations, No. 1-2,7-20. Groefsema, M. (1995). Can, may, must and should: A relevance theoretic account. Journal of Linguistics, 31, 53-79. Guo, J. (1992). Sentence subjects and the assigment of target of modal force: Children's use of the Mandarin modal auxiliary dei 'hafta'. In E. V. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Child Language Research Forum (pp. 87-98). Stanford, CA: Center for The Study of Language and Information. Guo, J. (1993). Discourse motivations for the development of Mandarin modal auxiliaries. In E. V. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2$th Annual Child Language Research Forum (pp. 315-323). Stanford, CA: Center for The Study of Language and Information. Guo, J. (19 9 5). The interactional basis of the Mandarin neng'can'. In J. Bybee & S. Fleischman (Eds.), Modality in grammar and discourse. Typological studies in language, (Vol. 32, pp. 205-238). Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Harris, R. J. (1975). Children's comprehension of complex sentences. Experimental Child Psychology, 19,289-310. Hickmann, M., Champaud, C., & Bassano, D. (1993). Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the devel­ opment of epistemic modality: Evidence from French children's reports of fhinit-statements. First Language, 13,359-389Hirst, W., & Weil, J. (1982). Acquisition of deontic and epistemic meanings of modals. Journal of Child Language, 9,6 59-666. Hoffner, C., Cantor, J., & Badzinski, D. M. (1990). Understanding of adverbs denoting degree of likehood. Journal of Child Language, 17,217-231. Horobin, K., & Acredolo, C. (1989). The impact of probability judgments on reasoning about mul­ tiple possibilities. Child Development, 60,188-200. Johnson, C. N., & Maratsos, M. P. (1977). Early comprehension of mental verbs: Think and know. Child Development, 48,1743-1747. Johnson, C. N., & Wellman, H. M. (1980). Children's developing understanding of mental verbs: Remember, know and guess. Child Development, 51,1095-1102. Kilcher, H. (1992). Comprehension of the polysemie verb "pouvoir" by four- to nine-year-old children. Poster presented at the 5th European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Seville, September. Kronning, H. (1996). Modalite, cognition et polysemie: Semantique du verbe modal devoir [Modality, cognition and polysemy: Semantics of the modal verb devoir'must' and 'should']. Uppsala: Acta

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Universitatis Upsaliensis. Larreya, P. (1984). Le possible et le necessaire. Modalite et auxiliaires modaux en anglais britannique [Possibility and necessity: Modality and modal auxiliaries in English ]. Poitiers: Nathan. Lehalle, H., & Jouen, F. (1978). Quelques verbes d'opinion et leur presupposition: Etude gdne"tique de leur comprehension chez 1'adolescent [Some mental verbs and their presupposition: Developmental study on the understanding by the teenager]. Enfance, 4-5, 237-245. Lucy, J. A. (1993). Reflexive language and the human disciplines. In J. A. Lucy (Ed.), Reflexive lan­ guage: Reported speech and metapragmatics. (pp. 9-32). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to theoretical linguistics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. MacNamara, J., Baker, E., & Olson, C. E. (1976). Four-year-olds' understanding of "pretend," "for­ get" and "know": Evidence for prepositional operations. Child Development, 47,61-70. Major, D. (1974). The acquisition of modal auxiliaries in the language of children. Paris: Mouton. Mandler,}. M. (1984). A la recherche du conte perdu: Structure de recit et rappel [In search of the lost tale: Narrative structure and recall]. In G. Denhiere (Ed.), II etait unefois... Comprehension et souvenirs de recits. (pp. 185-230). Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille. Mandler, J. M., & Johnson, N. S. (1977). Remembrance of things parsed: Story structure and recall. Cognitive Psychology, 9, i n-151. Martin, R. (1983). Pour une logique du sens [For a logic of meaning]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Miscione, J. L., Marvin, R. S., O'Brien, R., & Greenberg, M. T. (1978). A developmental study of preschool children's understanding of words "know" and "guess." Child Development, 49, 1107-1113. Moore, C., Bryant, D., & Furrow, D. (1989). Mental terms and the development of certainty. Child Development, 60,167—171. Moore, C., & Davidge, J. (1989). The development of mental terms: Pragmatics or semantics? Journal of Child Language, 16, 633-641. Moore, C., Furrow, D., Chiasson, L., & Patriquin, M. (1994). Developmental relationships between production and comprehension of mental terms. First Language, 14,1-17. Moore, C., Pure, K., & Furrow, D. (1990). Children's understanding of the modal expression of speaker certainty and uncertainty and its relation to the development of a representational the­ ory of mind. Child Development, 61,722-730. Oleron, P., & Legros, S. (1977). Presupposition, implication linguistique et atteinte de la com­ prehension de termes psychologiques par 1'enfant [Presupposition, linguistic implication and access to the understanding of psychological terms by children]. Journal de Psychologic Normale et Pathologique, 74, 409-429. OleYon, P., & Legros, S. (1986). ^interpretation des verbes psychologiques factifs par des enfants en fonction du contenu des enonce's [The interpretation of factitive psychological verbs by chil­ dren in relation to sentence content]. Cahiers de Psychologic Cognitive, 6,545-562. Palmer, F. R. (1977). Modals and actuality. Journal of Linguistics, 13,1-23. Palmer, F. R. (1979). Modality and English modals. London and New York: Longman. Palmer, F. R. (1986). Mood and modality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Parret, H. (1976). La pragmatique des modalites [Pragmatics of modalities]. Langages, 43, 47-63. Perkins, M. R. (1983). Modal expressions in English. London: F. Pinter. Perkins, M. R. (1987). Modality and explicitness. In C. Fuchs (Ed.), L'ambiguite et la paraphrase. Operations linguistiques, processus cognitifs, traitements automatises [Ambiguity and paraphrase: Linguistic operations, cognitive processes, automated processing]. Caen: Publications de 1'Universite de Caen. Perner, J., & Wimmer, H. (1985). "John thinks that Mary thinks that...": Attribution of second-order belief by 5- to lo-year-old children. Journal of Child Psychology, 39, 437-471.

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Pieraut-Le Bonniec, G. (1974). Le raisonnement modal: etude genetique [Modal reasoning: a devel­ opmental study]. Paris: Mouton. Schwanenflugel, P. J., Fabricius, W. V., & Noyes, C. R. (1996). Developing organization of mental verbs: Evidence for the development of a constructivist theory of mind in middle childhood. Cognitive Development, u, 265-294. Shatz, M., Wellman, H. M., & Silber, S. (1983). The acquisition of mental verbs: A systematic inves­ tigation of the first reference to mental state. Cognition, 14,301-321. Somerville, S. C., Hadkinson, B. A., & Greenberg, C. (1979). Two levels of inferential behavior in young children. Child Development, 50,119-134. Sophian, C., & Somerville, S. C. (1988). Early development in logical reasoning. Considering alter­ native possibilities. Cognitive Development, 3,183—222. Stephany, U. (1986). Modality. In P. Fletcher & M. German (Eds.), Language acquisition. Studies in first language development (pp. 375-400). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Stephany, U. (1993). Modality in first language acquisition. In N. Dittmar & A. Reich (Eds.), Modality in language acquisition (pp. 133-144). Berlin and New York: De Gruyter. Sueur, J. P. (1983). Les verbes modaux sont-ils ambigus? [Are modal verbs ambiguous?]. In J. David, & G. Kleiber (Eds.), La notion semantico-logique de modalite. (pp.i65-i82). Paris: Klincksieck, Tregidgo, P. S. (1982). Must and may: Demand and permission. Lingua, 56,75-92. Verschueren, J. (1999). Understanding pragmatics. London: Arnold. Verstiggel, J. C., & Denhiere, G. (1990). Representation cognitive et typologie combinatoire des proces. Etude experimentale des activites de categorisation [Cognitive representation and com­ binative classification of verbs: Experimental study of categorization activities]. Langages, 100, 33-44Wellman, H. M., & Estes, D. (1987). Children's early use of mental verbs and what they mean. Discourse Processes, w, 141-156. Wellman, H. M., & Johnson, C. N. (1979). Understanding of mental processes: A developmenal study of Remember and Forget. Child Development, 50,79-88.

APPENDIX 1

Statement categories are defined by the type of main verb (from Francois, 1990; Verstiggel & Denhiere, 1990). 1. Le chateau ressemble a de la guimauve. Report of a state 'The castle looks like marsmallow.' 2. Dominique s'imagine avoir raison. Report of an agentive state 'Dominique thinks he is right.' 3. Le ruisseau murmure dans le sous-bois. Report of a dynamic state 'The brook grumbles in the forest.' 4. Claude dessine. Report of an action 'Claude draws.' 5. Le bateau coule. Report of an event which involves a processus 'The ship sinks.' 6. Lafoudrefend Varbre en deux. Report of an event which involves a cause 'The lightning splits the tree in two parts.' 7. Claude demonte le moteur. Report of a causative action 'Claude takes down the engine.'

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Modal Verb Use by French-Speaking Children

8. Pierre est lefrere de Marie. 'Peter is Mary's brother.' 9. Caroline est plus grande que Julie. 'Carolyn is taller than Julie.'

121

Predication of a kind Predication of a property

From these statement categories four experimental lists were generated. Each sentence was coded with a number (from i to 9) which refers to the type of main verb and with two letters referring to the modal term: DE = doit 'must', DR = devrait 'should', PE = peut'may', PR = pourrait 'might'. List i: List 2: List 3: List 4:

SDR - 3 DR -1 DE - 6 PR - 7 DE - 5 PR - 9 PE - 4 PR - 2 PE 9DR - 2DE - jPR - 6PE - sDR - 3DE - 8PR - iPE - 4DR 4DE - iDR - 8PE - 3PR - 6DR - 5DE - zPR - 9DE - jPE iDR - 4 PE - 9PR - 5?E - /DR - 6DE - iPR - 3PE - 8DE

Functional Terms Referring to Usage Contexts Affirmation 'assertion' - Avertissement'warning' - Certitude'certainty' ­ Confirmation 'confirmation' - Conseil 'advice' - Croyance 'belief - Demande 'request' - Desir 'desire' - Hypothese 'hypothesis' - Incertitude 'uncertainty' ­ Information 'information' - Interdiction 'prohibition' - Ordre 'order' ­ Permission 'permission' - Possibilite 'possibility' - Proposition 'proposal' Recommandation 'recommendation' - Souhait 'wish' - Suggestion 'suggestion' APPENDIX 2 Narrative used with French-speaking children A is the first name of the boy in the story. X is one of the following linguistic terms: penser'to think', se dire'to wonder', pouvoir 'may or might', devoir 'must or should', falloir 'need to', peut-etre 'per­ haps' // etait unefois, dans un pays tres chaud, un patitgarcon qui s'appelaitA. Unjour, sa mere I'appela et lui montra un gateau. En le voyant, A Xque c etait un gateau aux raisins. La mere donna ce gateau a I'enfant et lui dit: "Xporter ce gateau a la voisine qui habitepres de I'eglise?" La maman recommanda aA.de bienfaire attention au gateau. Elle lui dit de le tenir avecprecaution pour qu'il ne soitpas en miettes quand A le donnera a la voisine. Le petit garcon enveloppa done le gateau dans une grande feuille de papier. II mit le tout sous son bras etpartit vers la maison de la voisine. Quand il arriva chez la voisine, I'enfant ouvrit lepaquet: le gateau etait ecrase en mille miettes. La voisine dit a A qu'ilX plus soigneux. Elle ajouta: "Si tu avaisporte le gateau sur ta tete, il n'auraitpas ete en miettes comme cela."

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Au moment ou A s'appretait & rentrer chez lui, la voisine dit & I 'enfant: "Je te donne un morceau de beurre pour ta mere." II prit le beurre et se dit: "Xfaire attention pour que le beurre nes'abimepas."IIsen alia en leplacantcettefois-cisursa tete. En chemin, le soleil brillaitet etait tres chaud. QuandA arriva chez lui, le beurre etait completement fondu. Sa mere lui dit: Tu es un vilain gar$on." Elle ajouta qu'UX placer le beurre dans une boite et qu'ainsi, il aurait X ramene le beurre en bon etat. Once upon a time, in a country where the weather was very warm, ther was a boy called A. One day, his mother called him and showed him a cake. When he saw it, A X that it was a cake made with grapes. His mother gave that cake to the child and told him: "X bring that cake to the woman neighbor who lives near the church?" His mummy advised him to take care of the cake. She told him to hold it carefully so that it might not be smashed to pieces when A will give it to the woman neighbor. Then, the boy wrapped the cake in a large sheet of paper. He put the whole under his arm and went toward the woman neighbor's house. When he arrived at the woman neighbor's, the child opened the package: the cake was smashed into thousand parts. The woman neighbour told A that he X be more careful with it. She added: "If you had carried the cake on your head, it would not have been smashed in bits as it is." When A was on the point of going back home, the woman neighbor told the child: "I give you a lump of butter for your mother." He took the butter and he said to himself: "X be careful so that the butter would not get spoiled." He went with the butter on his head this once. On the way, the sun was shining and it was very hot. When A was back home, the butter had totally melted. His mother told him: "You are a naughty boy." She added that he X place the butter in a box so that he X have brought it in good shape.

Contrast, the No Blur Principle, and the Acquisition of Zulu

SUSAN M. SUZMAN

University of the Witwatersrand

Carstairs-McCarthy (1994) extended Clark's Principle of Contrast (198 7,1993) for learning words to address intriguing and difficult questions concerning the acquisition of inflectional morphology. Unlike lexical word forms, categories like gender do not present the language learner with a consistent semantic basis for distinguishing one form from another. The absence of obvious formmeaning correlations introduces an element of meaninglessness to gender that would appear to present a formidable acquisition task to the language learning child. Despite this, complex morphology, including gender, is observed to be acquired early in many languages (Levy, 1996). Carstairs-McCarthy considers the acquisition of inflectional morphology within the broader framework of the acquisition of morphology. In extending Clark's (1987, 1993) Principle of Contrast—"Every two forms contrast in meaning" (1987, p. 2)—to inflectional morphology, he proposed that inflectional systems like gender can be learned analogously to lexical items, utilizing language-internal contrasts rather than associations between words and meanings in the extralinguistic world. He suggests that inflectional contrasts are based on associations between intralinguistic meaning, or "information content," and inflectional lexemes. He formalizes the proposal as the No Blur Principle: No Blur Principle: Within any set of competing inflectional affixal realizations for the same paradigmatic cell, no more than one can fail to identify inflection class unambiguously. (Carstairs-McCarthy, 1994, p. 732)

The No Blur Principle requires that one marker unambiguously identify an inflectional (conjugation or declension) class, establishing a one form:one meaning relation between intralinguistic elements; inflection class identifica­ tion "contributes to meaning if and only if it is unambiguous" (p. 741). With meaning associated with inflection class, the synonymy typically found in inflectional systems is significantly reduced. 123

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TABLE 6.1

English Verbs

Past Past part Example

No. of Vs

Class I

Class II

Class III

Class IV

Class V

-(e)d %-(e)d heal productive

-t -t feel productive

C(gave)

-(e)d %-(e)n show

C(dove)

7

2

%-(e)n give productive

%-(e)d dive

Based on Carstairs-McCarthy, 1994, p. 746. Note. The % sign represents blurred competing forms; the past suffixes -(e)d and -(e)n are associ­ ated with Classes I and V and Classes III and IV, respectively.

Carstairs-McCarthy discussed regularizing tendencies in English past tense formation in support of the No Blur Principle. The verb conjugation in English has five cells, morphosyntactic forms representing the verbal paradigm: (a) the simple present (no suffixal realization), (b) the third person singular form (a uniform -s), (c) the past tense, (d) the past participle, and (e) the present progressive (an invariant -ing). There are five subclasses of regular and irregular past verbs, marked by suffixes (internal verb changes, e.g., gave and dove in Table 6.1, are not considered). Cells (a), (b) and (e) do not unambiguously distinguish verb classes because (a) is unmarked and (b) and (e) are invariant. Thus, the past (c) and the past participle (d) are the only cells that can identify verb classes, and in these cases, there is blur, as indicated in Table 6.1. For purposes of the example, any technical problems with the classes are disre­ garded and the cells in Table 6.1 are accepted at face value. There is a tendency for verb Classes I, II, and III to be more productive than Classes IV and V, as their numbers on Table 6.1 show. In addition, the verbs in Classes IV and V can also occur in regularized past form,(e.g., shown and showed"). Uneven frequencies and alternate forms provide evidence of a strong regularizing tendency in favor of Classes I, II, and III. Conversely, there is pressure to eliminate the irregular, poorly represented classes. Absorbing them into Classes I and III would result in three distinct classes unambiguously identified by the past participial form. For example, the past participle -(e)n would "mean" past participle, Class III, in compliance with the No Blur Principle. The existing system with a few competing blurred verb forms is of course learned by children by repeated exposure to these verbs, showing that "the No Blur Principle cannot be a rigid, invariable constraint on inflectional organiza­ tion" (Carstairs-McCarthy, p. 747). Carstairs-McCarthy pointed out that its "parent," Clark's Principle of Contrast, also has exceptions to the one form:one meaning predisposition that children bring to learning morphology. The

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125

example indicates that the No Blur Principle is a constraint on learnability; in essense, the more genuinely blurred and competing forms are, the harder the system will be for the child to learn. The No Blur Principle for gender applies in a syntagmatic domain, defined by a syntactic relation between a noun and its agreeing constituents. Gender involves syntagmatic restrictions on different morphemes in the same context, depending on the noun with which they agree. Carstairs-McCarthy expressed the relation as follows: "what gender marking points towards is something which is usually present in THE SAME discourse context if not in the same sentence, namely a controller noun" (p. 765). He considered three possibilities for noun agreement relations: Outcome A, there are no restrictions on the general system because the noun provides the information that is necessary for interpreting agreeing forms appropriately; Outcome B, gender systems obey the No Blur Principle; and Outcome C, "the extent and nature of compliance with the Principle of Contrast depend on the nature of the gender system" (p. 766). In elaborating on Outcome C, Carstairs-McCarthy distinguished between overt and covert gender systems. Overt gender obtains when gender is inflec­ tionally marked on the noun. In covert gender systems, gender is not marked on the noun itself. Covert but not overt gender systems require the No Blur Principle. Zulu has an overt gender system; noun class prefixes on the noun stem identify noun class membership, as in i-xhegu class 5-old man 'old man' and in-komo class 9-cow 'cow'. These "controller genders" (Corbett's, 1991, terminology) determine agreement "target genders" on modifiers and verbs, for example, ixhegu li-wile 'the old man fell' versus inkomo i-wile 'the cow fell', where the head noun determines the realization of subject-verb agreement marker as H- or /'-. Covert gender systems like French do not have gender markers on the noun itself. In this type of language, agreement markers, not noun markers, identify gender class, as illustrated in la femme heureuse the woman happy 'the happy woman'. The feminine suffix -se on the adjective identifies the gender of the noun. In French, the noun is the target gender, the agreement marker the controller gender. For the learner of covert gender languages like French, the No Blur Principle narrows the options for interpreting new lexemes. The learner knows that if a lexeme has a particular form, it does not belong to other classes and that it will behave like other lexemes with the same form. Thus, its gender class is part of intralinguistic meaning guiding the language learner in acquisi­ tion. Children learning languages like Zulu will not in principle have recourse to the No Blur Principle because Zulu is an overt gender language and, there­ fore, is not typologically targeted for the use of the No Blur Principle. However, production data from Zulu children indicate that child morpho­ logy is considerably less overt than adult morphology. This observation raises the question of what children hear in input from adults. Do they hear

126

SUZMAN

the system as adults do? Could they use contrast in learning Zulu although the adult system does not lead to this prediction? In this chapter, I analyze children's acquisition of Zulu noun classes, the term traditionally used to describe Zulu gender classes, against the predictions of the No Blur Principle for gender in overt gender languages. The chapter is organized as follows: After a brief overview of Zulu structure, children's acquisition of noun classes and agreement is described and discussed in terms of Carstairs-McCarthy's proposals. ZULU STRUCTURE

Zulu is a representative Bantu language: It is a pro-drop language with subject-verb-object sentence word order and head-initial phrase structure. It has an extensive noun class and agreement system. As noted eralier, nouns belong to classes identified by prefixes on the noun stem. The majority of noun class (NC) prefixes are associated in singular-plural pairs, as illustrated by umu-ntu/aba-ntu 'person/people' for Classes i and 2 in Table 6.2. Prefixes in Zulu generally consist of a pre-prefix and a prefix. Thus, umu- above consists of a pre-prefix u- and a prefix tnu-. As the example shows, the pre-prefix is a vowel with the same value as the prefix vowel. The pre-prefix is not found in the majority of Bantu languages, which have a prefix only. Sesotho, a related Southeastern Bantu language, has only the prefix, as seen in the noun for 'person' mo-tho compared to umu-ntu in Zulu. The Zulu pre-prefix results in a system of vowel commencing prefixes, as seen in Table 6.2. Zulu noun class prefixes are generally morphophonologically transparent, with singulars and plurals being uniquely predictable from one to the other. There are exceptions, however, where "blur" occurs. For example, Classes i and 3 seem to be formally identical, but nouns in these classes are semantically contrastive, Class i generally referring to people and Class 3 to nonhumans, traditionally a class of living inanimates (Doke, 1973). Correspondences are not blurred if they are semantically distinguished. Historically, noun class systems are believed to have been semantically based, with nouns referring to types of objects, human, animal, etc., occurring in different noun classes. In contempo­ rary Zulu, the semantic basis is attenuated and the noun class system is primarily morphological. Partial form-meaning correlations still persist, however, in the so-called "human" classes, Noun Classes land la and 2 and 2a, where the majority of nouns refer to individuals or categories of people. Other areas of blur cannot be explained semantically. Singular Noun Class 9 in Table 6.2 is associated with plurals in Classes 6 and 10, preventing Class 10 from being the "sole 'default' gender in the plural" (Carstairs-McCarthy, 1994, p. 775). Likewise, plural noun class 10 is associated with both Class 9 and 11 singulars. In these cases, there is no semantic or phonological contrast between noun classes and "blur" occurs.

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TABLE 6.2 Noun Classes in Zulu Noun Class

Noun Class Prefixes Singular

la

um(u)-,u-

3 5 7 9 11

umu­ i:isi­ in­ ulu­ ubu­ uku­

14 15

Noun Class

Noun Class Prefixes Plural

2(a) 4 6 8

aba-, 0 imi­ ama­ izi­

10

izin­

14 15

ubu­ uku-

Noun class prefixes are the controller genders that determine extensive allit­ erative agreement elsewhere in sentence and discourse. Partial concordial (agreement) sets for Zulu are given in Table 6.3. (In the tables and examples, NC = noun class prefix, Poss = possessive agreement marker, Rel/adj = relative/adjective agreement marker, SM = subject agreement/pronoun marker, OM = object pronoun marker, Demon = Demonstrative pronoun, and Pres = present tense.) In Carstairs-McCarthy's terms, properties of controller genders con­ tribute to overtness. Overtness is a relative notion; having an overt "controller gender" in itself does not make a controller gender fully overt. Rather, overtness is defined by a group of properties that co-occur but are not logically con­ nected. They are: (i) overt affixes on the noun, (ii) the same gender affix in singular (sg) and plural (pi), (iii) markers that unambiguously identify the tar­ get class, and (iv) the same affix in all contexts. Having all of these properties results in a fully overt noun class system; having some of them results in a rela­ tively less overt system. Zulu noun classes have features (i), and generally (iii) and (iv). As noun class prefixes are associated in singular-plural pairs, criterion (ii) is not met. Nominal modifiers and verbs are brought into agreement with the head noun or with a discourse-established topic by means of agreement prefixes, as illustrated in Examples i and 2. (i)

Sentence agreement: NCs and agreement for Classes 5 and 9 i-kati la-mi eli-ncane li-ya-gijima NC5-cat Poss5-my AdJ5-small SM5-Pres-run 'my small cat is running' in-komo ya-mi e-ncane NC9-cow Poss9-my AdJ9-small 'my small cow is running'

i-ya-gijima SMg-Pres-run

128

SUZMAN

T A B L E 6.3

Noun Classes and Agreement in Zulu Noun Class NC Prefix

la

wm(w)-

23

flbfl­ umu­ imi­

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

i:amaisi­ izi­

iN­

izin­

11

u:-

14 15

ubu­ uku­

Poss wa­ 0ba­ wa­ yala a­ sa­ za­ yaza­ Iwa­ ba­ kwa­

Rel/Adj 0­

aba­ 0­

e­ eli­

a­ esi­ ezi­

e­ ezi­ olu­ obu­ oku­

SM u­ ba­ ui­ li­ asizi­ i­ zi­ lu­ buku­

OM

Pronoun (Demon.}

mba­ wuyi­ li­ wa­ si­ zi­ yi­ zi­ lu­ bu­ ku­

lo laba lo le

leli lawa lesi lezi le

lezi lolu lobu lokhu

In these sentences, the adjective, possessive, and subject markers are target gen­ ders agreeing with controller gender of the head noun. Although these examples illustrate the sentential nature of Zulu noun class and agreement, elaborated sentences like these are rare even in adult-to-adult speech. Far more characteristic are the short exchanges seen in Example (2). (2) Discourse agreement in adult-child conversation: Thulani (T), 1511, Sophie (S), his mother S: u-ph'um-ntwana? SM i -where'NCi -child SM9-where T: i-phi? SM i -where'NCi -child S: u-ph'um-ntwana? SMi-sleep'NCi-child T: u-lal'um-ntwana S: um-ntwana ka-bani NCi-child of-whom Possi-my T: wa-mi

'Where is the child?' 'where is he?' 'Where is the child?' 'he sleeps, the child does" 'Whose child is it?'

As illustrated, even the simplest conversation involves the use of agreement markers. In developing the conversation, adult and child effectively construct a morphological paradigm around the topic of conversation umntwana 'child'. In Zulu, the origin of agreement lies in reference to discourse- or contextuallyestablished topics rather than to sentence subjects (Suzman, 1995). Given Zulu's overt transparent morphology, children should be able to learn Zulu morphology without recourse to special learning principles like No Blur. By contrast, children learning French would be predicted to use the No Blur principle. I now consider children's developing noun class prefixes and

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Contrast and Acquisition of Zulu Gender

129

TABLE 6.4

Children's Noun Class Prefixes and Agreement at Two Years Noun

la 5 (6) (7) 9

JVC Prefixes

Possessive

Child

Adult

Child

Adult

u-~& z-~0

u-

ama- ~ ( 3

amaisi­

wa­ laa­ saya-

walaa­ saya-

z'-~0 z'-~0

i:-

iN­

Subject marker Child

Adult

u- ~ 0

u­

i- ~ 0 a­ ~ 0 i- ~ 0 j— 0

//flsz­ z-

agreement in Zulu to investigate whether these predictions are borne out. Specifically, I describe children's morphology compared to adult Zulu, degrees of overtness in child and adult Zulu, and evidence for acquisition strategies uti­ lizing intralinguistic contrasts.

C H I L D R E N ' S EARL Y NOUN CLAS S A N D A G R E E M E N T S Y S T E M S Children use a few noun class and agreement markers in approximately half of their utterances at age two. There is no telegraphic two-word stage in Zulu comparable to that found in the speech of children learning English (Brown, 1973) and, consequently, Zulu child speech resembles a very simple adult Zulu. As mentioned before, early emergence of complex morphological systems has been fairly widely noted in the literature (Levy, 1996) and in this respect, Zulu children show themselves to be sensitive to the typological features of their language. The early morphology in Table 6.4 is a consequence of what the child talks about. Through adult-child interactions like those illustrated in (2), noun class prefixes, subject markers and possessives are brought to the child's attention. (In Table 6.4, infrequent classes are given in parentheses and adult forms are provided where they vary from child forms.) Table 6.4 reveals a dramatically simplified noun class and agreement system. Comparing child (Table 6.4) and adult (Table 6.3) morphology shows that children use a subset of adult singular classes, Classes la, 5, and 9 (Suzman, 1991). A predominance of singular classes reflects young children's tendency to use singular reference, a feature that effectively halves the child's acquisition task for Zulu noun classes. Further, Table 6.4 shows that children optionally use noun class prefixes and subject markers. They tend to omit noun class prefixes in citation form and in subject position but use them postverbally in object position, for example, thath'in-komo (thatha in-komo) take NC9-cow'take the cow'. In casual speech, the first of two contiguous vowels across a morpheme boundary is elided, so that the final vowel of the verb thatha is deleted, preserving the noun class prefix

13O

SUZMAN

and the preferred consonant-vowel syllable structure. Predictable occurrence of a noun class prefix postverbally shows that children are in the process of learning an overt gender system. Elsewhere, noun class prefixes and subject markers may be omitted. Possessive prefixes predominantly occur on the self-referential first person pronoun -mi 'my'; they are invariably included because they complete the monosyllabic possessive stem -mi in conformance with a strong pressure towards disyllabic word structure in Bantu languages. Table 6.4 also shows that children neutralize phonological contrasts among z-commencing prefixes in adult speech. This suggests that they hear the pre-prefix vowel as the prefix for z-commencing prefixes and tend to over­ generalize it for Classes 5, 7, and 9 (i:-, isi-, and z(N)-) effectively collapsing Classes 5, 7, and 9 into Class 9 (Suzman, 1996). Similar overgeneralization of subject markers occurs, suggesting that children may even do agreement on the Zulu pre-prefix vowel i-. Overgeneralization produces an overt but blurred system where the z'-commencing prefix does not uniquely identify the noun class membership of a noun, either as controller or target gender. Properties of controller genders, the noun class prefixes, thus are different in adult and child Zulu. Singular nouns only in child speech result in a single noun class marker for what are associated singular-plural pairs—Criterion (ii) above—in adult Zulu. At the same time, due to neutralization among z-commencing prefixes, controller noun class prefixes do not uniquely identify target prefixes, criterion (iii) above. Table 6.5 summarizes the differences between adult and child prefixes. The child's morphology is not as overt as the adult's, as the +/- values for criteria (i) and (iii) indicate. It represents a situation that Carstairs-McCarthy discusses as "the possibility that a gender system may be partly overt and partly covert, falling short of maximal overtness in various ways" (19 94, p. 768). Children also build morphological paradigms unevenly, in the sense that some agreement markers are accurate whereas others are overgeneralized or omitted. Table 6.6 shows that children's morphology is characterized by over­ generalized or absent noun class prefixes and subject markers but accurate possessive markers. TABLE 6.5

Comparison of Adult and Child Controller Genders Controller Genders

Adult

Child

(i) overt affix (ii) a single affix (sg/pl)

+ -

+/+

(iii) unambiguous identity of target lexemes mes

+

+/-

(iv) same lexeme

+

+

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Contrast and Acquisition of Zulu Gender

131

TABL E 6.6 Child Morphology Noun class la 5 (6) (7) 9

NC Prefix u- ~ 0­ i— 0­ ama- ~ 0­ i- ~ 0­ i- ~ 0­

Poss. wa­ la­ a­ sa­ ya­

SM u- ~ 0­ i — 0a- ~ 0i- ~ 0­ i- ~ 0­

Young children often use prefixless nouns in possessive noun phrases, and in this context, the possessive prefix is the only identifier of class membership of the noun. Possessive exchanges are integral to early conversations between adult and child, as noted by Brown (1973) for children learning English. Widely used by caretakers to sustain children's attention by relating objects to them, posses­ sives are particularly frequent in conversations with young children and decrease in frequency as children become better conversational partners. In Example (3), the mother points to the doll's head and asks whose head it is. The child replies somewhat automatically with 'mine', is corrected by the adult, with whom he agrees, and repeats the appropriate adult possessive. The mother continues the conversation with another possessive, providing models for practice with these common structures (3) Thulani (T) i;ii, and Sophie (S) S: i-khanda la-bani leli? NCs-head Posss-who Demons T: la-mi S: lo-m-ntwana T: lo-m-ntwana S: in-gubo ka-bani? T: ya-mi

'Whose head is this?' Head of whom this one Poss5-my mine Poss5-NCi-child 'The child's' Poss5-NCi-child 'the child's' NC9-blanket of-who 'Whose blanket is it?' Poss9 -my 'mine'

Both noun class markers and possessives are learned in close association with the noun. However, as noted before, the possessive prefix is not omitted because it primarily occurs with monosyllabic possessive stems and is integral to using agreement forms in this context. The child's system, at least from production data, is similar but not identical to adult Zulu. The failure of prefixes to be maximally overt allows for the possibility that target genders on agreeing constituents identify blurred noun class member­ ship. Early accessibility of appropriate agreeing forms suggests that they lead the way in restructuring an optional and overgeneral morphological system. Evidence that target genders can assign noun class membership in child Zulu comes from the sentences in Example (4). In adult Zulu, only the noun class

132

SUZMAN

prefix determines agreement. In the following examples, the left-most element in these sentences, the subject marker, determines agreement, not the noun. (4) Left-to-right agreement by Busanathi, i;io: Child Utterance Adult (a) i-ph' i-nana ya-tni u-ph'u-nana wa-mi? SM9-where'NC9-baby Possp-my SMi-where'NCi-baby Possi-my 'where is my baby?' (b~)Nna-y'bhol'i-wile Here-SM9>ball'SM9-fell 'here is the ball, it fell'

na-l'i-bhola li-wile here-SMs'NCs-ball SMs-fell

In Example (4b), the child's subject marker restructures the noun class of the noun 'ball', despite the fact that the child elsewhere knows ibhola to be a Class 5 noun, as seen in ibhola lami 'ball my' from the same transcript. These examples indicate that agreement is not as narrowly defined for the child as it is for the adult. They raise the possibility that target genders can assign noun class membership. Support for differences between adult and child morphology comes from occasional occurrence of mixed agreement in noun phrases. In (5), gender conflict shows that the possessive, not the noun class prefix, is the class identifier, unambiguously identifying the noun class of the noun. (5)

Mixed agreement: Child Utterance *i-gok' sa-mi NC5/7/9-hat Poss/-my

Adult Gloss isi-gqoko sa-mi 'my hat' NC/-hatPossy-my

This example is instructive. The child uses the i- noun class prefix but supports it with the appropriate possessive for Noun Class 7. The noun class prefix does not uniquely predict the agreement prefix. However, Possessive 7 does. Both prefixes and possessives are learned in close association with noun but only the possessive identifies the noun because the child has to some extent extracted the pre-prefix i- from the full Zulu prefix isi- and used it as the noun class marker. Children often produce appropriate prefixes especially when they are supported by an agreeing form, as in thath'isi-nkwa sa-mi take'NC7-bread Poss7-my 'take my bread'. The child's underlying representation of the noun prefix may include both prefixes or the full prefix, which may be reduced or omitted in production data. Production data suggest the underlying system, but do not preclude fuller underlying representations. Example (5) indicates that children use contrast in refining overgeneral morphology. Strong evidence that children use contrast comes from their use of discourse cues to restructure overgeneral morphologies, as shown in (6).

6

Contrast and Acquisition of Zulu Gender

(6 ) Adult input as a source of contrast: Busanathi (B) i;ii, and Mpiyakhe, her older SM5/7/9 -where B: i-phi? SM5 -where (li-phff) M:yz-m? SM9-what NC5/7/9-ball B: i-Wiola M:a-li-kho Neg-SMs-there B. H-ngen-ile SM5-come in-past

133

cousin 'where is it? 'what?' 'the ball' 'it's not there' 'it came in'

The child first overgeneralizes subject marker 5/7/9; then, she picks up on cues from discourse and correctly assigns ibhola to Noun Class 5, as seen in the last sentence. As discussed in Suzman (1995), children's use of agreement in ­ discourse is more accurate than in their own sentences where there are no conversational constraints on overgeneralization. Online correction of agree­ ment is consistently found in adult-child conversations. It provides strong evidence in support of children attending to contrast in input. If they did not, we would not anticipate self-correction but persistence of the child's own overgeneral forms. In this interpretation, the No Blur Principle can provide the means for restructuring an overgeneral system in accordance with the adult language. SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

Further evidence in support of children using contrast to learn inflectional morphology comes from related Bantu languages, language impairment, and second language learning. Zulu and related Southeastern Bantu languages have similar noun class and agreement systems but vary in surface realization and obligatoriness of noun class prefix use. As discussed, Zulu has a prefix that consists of pre-prefix and prefix. Prefixes are vowel-commencing, long, high-toned, and obligatory. As noted earlier in presenting Bantu structure, Sesotho, a related language, employs the prefix only and has consonantcommencing, low-toned, monosyllabic prefixes. In addition, there are zero morphemes in the two prominant Classes la and 9 as well as optional use of prefixes when supported by agreement prefixes, as in se-kolo 'school' in citation form, but kolo sa-ne'that school' when modified. Demuth (1992) noted that "possessive and demonstrative agreement forms are well in place before nouns are consistently marked with noun class prefixes" (p. 595). The two systems are given in Table 6.7. Both systematically and pragmatically, Sesotho is less overt than Zulu as a comparison of properties of noun class prefixes in the two languages indicate (see Table 6.8). Learners would appear to have to rely heavily on cues from target genders in order to identify noun class membership. Sesotho is a language that seems designed for the No Blur principle. Unlike Zulu, where contrast serves to

134

SUZMAN

TABLE 6-7

Comparative Noun Class Prefixes in Zulu and Sesotho Noun Class

Zulu

Sesotho

umu-, uaba-, oumuimii:amaisiiziiN-

10

izin-

mo-, 0­ ba-, bo­ momelemasedi0 di-

11 14 15

u:ubuuku-

boho-

la 2a 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

TABLE 6.8

Properties of Noun Class Prefixes in Zulu and Sesotho Controller Genders (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

overt affix a single affix (sg & pi) unambiguous identity of target lexemes same lexeme

Zulu

Sesotho

+

+/-

-

-

+ +

+/+

restructure an overly general system, contrast appears to play an important role in identifying noun classes. Further support for the role of intralinguistic contrasts in acquisition comes from preliminary study of language impairment in Zulu (Demuth & Suzman, 1997)- Specific language impairment (SLI) in Zulu reveals the morphology in a case study of a language-delayed child, Sipho, at 257, shown in Table 6.9. Comparing the morphology of this delayed child with that of normal younger children, Tables 6.6 and 6.9, it is seen that the delayed morphology is both more restricted and more blurred than the normal. Sipho has an overt produc­ tive two-class system, consisting of Classes i/ia and 5/7/9. Lack of possessives and pronouns in the child's speech prevents unambiguous identification of i-commencing classes. Restructuring a blurred system may be more difficult than restructuring a normal child's morphology precisely because there are no

6

Contrast and Acquisition of Zulu Gender

135

TABL E 6.9 Language-Delayed Morphology for One Child at 27 Noun Class

i/ia 5/7/9

NC Prefix

SM

u­ i-

u»'­

contrasts within the child's own system. The child with language impairment obviously hears contrasts in input but lack of possessive noun phrases in his own speech indicates that he may not exploit features of interactive speech as effectively as the child with normal language does. Although the data come from a single case study, the absence of morphological contrasts may be diagnostic for specific language impairment in morphologically complex languages. Contrasts point the way to restructuring a child's morphology; the absence of contrasts inhibits restructuring. Finally, Wildsmith and Godlonton (1997) observed that early access to the complex morphology of Zulu is not shared by older second language learners, who report major difficulties in identifying noun class prefixes and appropriate agreement lexemes. Adults say that they consciously search for inflectional contrasts in learning the complex morphology of Zulu. Self-report data suggest that metalinguistic awareness of intralinguistic contrasts may contribute to successful language learning. CONCLUSION

Before summarizing the predictions of the No Blur Principle for the acquisition of noun classes in Zulu, it is important to emphasize the importance of discourse in the development and restructuring of Zulu gender. Discourse plays two important roles in the development of complex morphology in Zulu. First, it provides the framework within which morphological paradigms develop. Noun class and agreement are often presented in textbooks primarily as sentence phenomena, but research shows that children learn about syntagmatic relations in discourse and vertical constructions. Short conversational exchanges provide morphological building blocks for Zulu morphology. Children get integrated information about related forms from a sequence of utterances, where individual utterances often only contain a single marker. Alliterative markers co-occurring with discourse themes in frequent, repeated familiar conversations provide the basis of the child's construction of morpho­ logical paradigms. Second, discourse plays a crucial role in refining a partially blurred system. From an early age, children utilize discourse cues in restructuring overgeneral morphology. Adult input provides the contrasts that children use consistantly to hone their morphology to the adult model.

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Discourse rather than the sentence thus provides the context for learning and refining gender systems. Turning now to the No Blur Principle, we reconsider Car stairs-McCarthy's three possible outcomes for a noun agreement relation, (a) no relation, (b) a relation regulated by the No Blur Principle, and (c) a relation predicted for some but not all gender languages. Because Zulu is an overt gender language, (a) and (c) predict that it will be learned without invoking a principle of con­ trast. The study of Zulu child language development presented in this chapter indicates that typological predictions from adult morphology do not provide a reliable guide to learning particular types of gender languages. Hence, the dis­ tinction between overt and covert is not supported by close examination of child data in Zulu. Although this finding is clearly limited to Zulu and needs empirical investigation in a range of gender languages, it indicates strongly that detailed acquisition studies are needed in order to determine just what children hear in a language and how what they hear influences the process of acquisition. Differences between adult and child morphologies show that learnability conditions based on adult systems stop short of accounting for children's data. Omissions and simplifications in young children's speech produce morphology that is considerably less overt than adult Zulu morphology. Zulu children early on construct overt but blurred gender systems. Strong evidence has been provided in support of (b), the outcome that predicts that children's acquisition will be guided by a principle of No Blur. Contrasts in adult input and in aspects of children's unevenly developing morphology are used to acquire the adult system. Research into the acquisition of Zulu tentatively broadens the application of the No Blur Principle to overt and covert languages, in itself a desirable outcome for general learning principles for inflectional morphology. Further crosslinguistic investigation of overt gender systems is needed in order to probe the strength of this finding. One of the factors that make the No Blur Principle attractive is its extension of Clark's (1993) principles for learning lexical morphology. General principles underlying lexical and inflectional morphology are the first step to building an integrated conceptual framework for the acquisition of morphology. Although the No Blur Principle predicts aspects of noun class acquisition, in providing a mechanism by which overgeneral morphology is restructured in Zulu and in identifying noun class membership in Sesotho, the full acquisition story for noun class systems in Bantu languages is clearly a more complex one. It is possible to suggest that it involves prosodic factors, as discussed by Demuth (1996). and phonetic properties of surface morphology and alliterative repetition, as Zulu morphology indicates. The precocious acquisition of the agreement principle illustrated in Example (4) points to innate linguistic features, such as Levy (1996) considered in her discussion of the accessibility of "closed" morphological systems. Complex morphological systems in related languages present a rich terrain for studying how various factors contribute

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to early and different acquisition patterns. Their investigation raises the possibil­ ity that multiple pragmatic, phonetic, and linguistic principles interact in access­ ing morphological systems. Here again, the crosslinguistic approach to the study of particular problems provides of identifying these factors and their interaction. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the Centre for Scientific Development and the University of the Witwatersrand for facilitating my participation at the Seventh International Congress for the Study of Child Language, where this work was presented as a paper. I also would like to thank Katherine Demuth and particularly John Taylor, formerly a colleague from the University of the Witwatersrand and now at Otago University, for their observations and comments on the chapter. REFERENCES Brown, R. (1973). A first language, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin. Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (1994). Inflection classes, gender and the principle of contrast. Language, 70,737-788. Clark, E. V. (1987). The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.) Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 1-33). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Clark, E. V. (1993). The lexicon in acquisition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Corbett, G. (1991). Gender. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Demuth, K. (1992). The acquisition of Sesotho. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of lan­ guage acquisition, Vol. 3 (pp. 557-638). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Demuth, K. (1996). The prosodic structure of early words. In J. Morgan & K. Demuth (Eds.), Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition (pp. 171-184). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Demuth, K., & Suzman, S. M. (1997). Language impairment in Zulu. Proceedings of the 2ist Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Vol. i (pp. 124-135). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Doke, C. M. (1973). Textbook of Zulu grammar (6th ed.). Cape Town: Longman Southern Africa (Pty) Limited. Levy, ¥.(1996). Why are formal systems early to emerge? In C. E.Johnson & J. H. V. Gilbert (Eds.), Children's language, Vol. 9: (pp. 75-86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Suzman, S. M. (1991). Language acquisition in Zulu. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand. Suzman, S. M. (1995). The discourse origin of agreement in Zulu. In A. Traill, R. Vossen, & M. Biesele (Eds.), The complete linguist: Essays in honour of Patrick Dickens (pp. 319-337). Cologne: Rudiger Koppe Verlag. Suzman, S. M. (1996). Acquisition of noun class prefixes in related Bantu languages. In C. E. Johnson & J. H. V. Gilbert (Eds.), Children's language, Vol. 9 (pp. 87-104). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Suzman, S. M., & Demuth, K. A developmental case study of language impairment in Zulu. Manuscript in preparation. Wildsmith, R., & Godlonton, M. (1997, July). Learning and teaching Zulu as a second language. Paper delivered at the 25th Annual Conference of the South African Association of Language Teachers. University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

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Perceiving Referring Actions: Latino and Euro-American Infants and Caregivers Comprehending Speech

PATRICIA ZUKOW-COLDRINC

University of California, Los Angeles

Refer: 8b. To direct (one) to a fact, event, or thing, by directing attention to it or pointing it out. —OXFORD ENGLIS H DICTIONARY, 1989 Referring: Referring is not something an expression does; it is something that some­ one can use an expression to do. —STRAWSON, 1952

How do infants learn the relation between speech and ongoing events? Given infants are immersed in a continuous perceptual flow, how do these cultural novices begin to detect and take part in assembling the structure and organiza­ tion of everyday events? And, how do infants eventually come to perceive the relation between speech and a specific subsegment of the whole spectrum of perceptual structure or information (visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory, proprioceptive) available at any one moment during some daily activity? My answer is informed by social ecological realism. In this view, caregivers educate their infants' attention (Gibson, 1966, p. 282) by marking the relation between what they say and what they do with gestures. That is, they assist them to perceive referring actions: to notice when someone directs attention (with gestures or words) to some element, relation, or event. Caregivers provide practice to the infant that embodies the relation between capabilities of the body, opportunities for action in the environment, and ongoing speech (Zukow, 1990; Zukow-Goldring, 1996,1997). For instance: Vignette i. One afternoon in a quiet, predominantly Latino, working-class neighborhood in the Western United States, mother and daughter sit on the living room couch. As Angela of 16 months attempts to peel an orange, Cecilia, her mother encourages her, saying, A ver' Let's see'. Noticing Angela's lack of success, Cecilia nods with a quick head-point downward at her as she says, /Pe/a/a/'Peel it'. Angela looks at her mother expectantly, but does not begin to peel the orange. Cecilia waits briefly before saying, ;Tu pe'/a/a/'Peel it!', as she points with her index 139

14O

ZUKOW-COLDRINC

finger at the orange. After another pause, Cecilia moves closer to her daughter, wraps her arms around her, putting her hand over Angela's as she says, jQuitale asi, mira/'Take it off like this, look'. Cecilia embodies Angela's hands/arms as together they hold the orange firmly and pull the peel away. As Cecilia removes her hand from her daughter's, she commends her saying, Mira, ya le quitaste una 'Look, you already took one off. Then Cecilia shows Angela the first bit of another bit of peel, asking, jOtra?'Another?' The mother partially demonstrates peeling the orange by lifting the peel almost entirely free of the flesh. Then she invites Angela to join in, saying, A ver, esft'ra/e'Let's see, pull it'. Angela reaches for the peel and pulls it completely off the orange. (Zukow, AGi6,11/8/91).'

This vignette illustrates the attentive, nuanced interplay of caregiver and infant as events gradually unfold and displays the tight coupling and reflexive nature of the most mundane activities. Although taken for granted, these care­ giver methods warrant a second glance as they spontaneously elaborate or subside as the infants' attention waxes and wanes. In this chapter, I sketch several other approaches to lexical development. Then, I provide an overview of social ecological realism. I summarize the empirical evidence supporting my claim that educating infant's attention promotes infants' comprehension of speech among Euro-American families. Next, I re-evaluate arguments that limit such attentive caregiving practices to middle-class, Euro-American families. I present robust evidence demonstrat­ ing that Latino caregivers educate their infants' attention. The discussion proposes that studies of linguistic typology may explain why Latino caregivers gesture far more than Euro-Americans. A comparison of social ecological realism to several other approaches that highlight the caregiving environment suggests a future rapprochement leading to a more comprehensive theory of development. Other Approaches Theoretical Arguments to the Contrary. Presuppositions regarding the pri­ macy of processes and progress internal to the individual child (Schlesinger, 1982; Wexler & Culicover, 1980) and the preference for investigating children's language production (Bloom, 1993; Moore & Dunham, 1995) mav obscure the importance of how the environment of the prelinguistic infant might cultivate language learning (K. Nelson, 1985). A further challenge comes from the many researchers who have questioned the efficacy of gesture in specifying the relation between word and ongoing events for first language learners. These scholars often rely on Quine's classic essay (1960) in which he discussed the ambiguity of reference entailed in, say, i

AGi6 refers to the i6-month videotaping of the child, AG, recorded on November 18,1991.

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speaking about and pointing to a rabbit (Markman, 1989; Schlesinger, 1982). According to his argument, a point cannot assist the hearer in determining whether the speaker refers to the entire rabbit, some part, its motion, and so on. Others question this interpretation. Zukow (1990) noted that Quine addressed the mapping or translation problem facing (adept) individuals attempting to communicate from one conceptual system to another rather than novices learning language (see also, Reed, 1993). Before rejecting or accepting these arguments, empirical evidence suggests other possibilities. Other Possibilities. Infants comprehend what others say, before they pro­ duce speech themselves (Bates, Bretherton, & Snyder, 1988). Although the lexicon must be learned, the implications of this pervasive finding have kindled little research into the perceptual and social origins of speech comprehension during the prelinguistic period. (For exceptions, see Harris, Jones, & Grant, 1983; Messer, 1983). Research that addresses the potential importance of social interaction for lexical development almost exclusively studies how caregivers' verbal messages affect the language production of children during the oneword period and beyond (K. Nelson, 1985). Others, however, have noted the pervasive and important role of perception. From theorists in philosophy (Millikan, 1984), cognitive linguistics (Talmy, 1995), psychology (McNeill, 1985), and anthropology (Goodwin, 1994) comes a growing consensus that language "windows attention." That is, what people notice from where they stand informs what they perceive and subsequently how they express themselves. Surely language does direct attention, but does attention play a part in language development? Many investigators have reported robust evidence that attention correlates with the emergence of the lexicon (Adamson, Bakeman, & Smith, 1988; Tomasello, 1988; Zukow, 1990). But, of course, attention is not language/speech and language cannot "window" attention to a preverbal infant. Logically, then, words cannot explain unless a person already knows what words mean. Yet learning what words mean is what the infant "means" to learn. Even more basic, infants must understand what they perceive. Wittgenstein (1961) discussed the problem of teaching what is meant with words. He asserted that people can not "say" or "explain" in language what a meaning relation might be. If words cannot explain something new, how do people see what is meant? Wittgenstein (1961, 4.1212) answered this conundrum by arguing cryptically that "what can be shown, cannot be said." That is, individuals receiving messages can directly grasp meaning only through the "saying and showing" of the person expressing the message (Erneling, 1993)- Thus, caregivers can assist infants to perceive what is said by continu­ ously marking the relation between speech and ongoing events. Despite King Solomon's admonitions, psychology cuts the infant into developmental parts: motor, emotional, social, perceptual, and cognitive.

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Caregivers do not take this tack. They receive infants one to a package, undivided. As a matter of course, all the parts come into play. Caregivers can elaborate what is said by routinely appealing to this multiplicity as they direct infants to detect and take part in assembling the structure and organization of everyday events. Caregivers need not limit themselves to expressing more explicit linguistic messages. Such methods correlate with achieving a common understanding following communicative breakdowns that occur when teacher and child do not share the same cultural heritage (Zukow-Goldring, Romo, & Duncan, 1994). In school, at work (Macbeth, 1994; Moerman, 1988), and even when conducting abstractVesoteric scientific research (Goodwin, 1994; Lynch, 1993), partici­ pants attempt to educate each other's attention. Individuals direct one another to notice the relation between the words being expressed and what each perceives that the world might offer for action and interaction (ZukowGoldring, 1996). That is, people try to get others to "see" what they say and mean by keeping others directly "in touch" with what they say and do during interaction. SOCIAL ECOLOGICAL REALISM

Theoretical Roots I propose a social ecological realist approach informed by Vygotsky (1978), Gibson (1979), and ethnomethodology/linguistic anthropology (Garfinkel, 1967; Goodwin, 1994) to illuminate how people come to see eye-to-eye regard­ ing what is being said and what is happening. The cultural-historical view tells us that the knowing emerges in social interaction where more adept members assist those who are less practiced. The theory of direct perception discloses how people pick up the perceptual structure that guides perceiving, acting, and knowing. Ethnomethodolgy/ linguistic anthropology pinpoints how people reduce ambiguity in everyday life by doing the interactive work of coming to see eye-to-eye. Combining these three views, a social ecological realism provides a basis for investigating how people propagate cultural knowing. People unfamiliar with or in disagreement over points of view afford each other new possibilities for selecting and detect­ ing the structure in light, sound, odor, pressure, and so on.3 This dynamic

2 People take "abstract" to mean that some specific object or actual instance is somehow separate from perceptible reality. Gibson (1979) argued that perceiving extends in time/space with no defini­ tive boundaries. "A perception, in fact, does not have an end. Perceiving goes on" (p. 253). In this view, objects and events have a real, not an abstract, history for individuals. 3 Caregiver—child pairs with blind, hearing-impaired, deaf members may utilize other perceptual modalities to achieve a common ground for understanding each other's messages.

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structure specifies the ceaseless unfolding of the configuration and organiza­ tion of cultural activities.4 Direct Perception. Gibson (1979) proposed that the world is directly perceived. Each species detects higher order perceptual structure that is mean­ ingful for its survival, such as surfaces for walking, not incomplete psychophysical bits and pieces that must be woven together by the mind. Creatures detect the perceptual structure that specifies the unchanging invari­ ant aspects of ongoing events the something that something is happening to as well as the structure specifying transformation and change the something that is happening (Michaels & Carello, 1981). As creatures move, they detect perceptual structure in the flow of light that specifies surfaces, edges that conceal one an­ other, texture, flexibility, and so on. Direct perception is the copresence of the self and the environment. That is, creatures perceive themselves as located in the environment and reciprocally perceive what the environment offers or affords for action. As Neisser (1991), noted survival depends on perceiving one's local environment, not in representing it. Cycles of Perceiving and Acting. My approach views development as a process of perceptual differentiation. Perceiving and acting do not develop sep­ arately, but together, as the one reflexively and continuously informs the other (Turvey & Fitzpatrick, 1993). People act to perceive and perceive to act (Gibson, !979)- For instance, as individuals walk about they see a flow of perceptual structure that specifies whether the surface they perceive will support walking or not. While walking about people see more of the ground and the things blocking the way. The more that they see guides where and how to move next. I propose that cycles of perceiving and acting emerge during interaction. These cycles entail an inseparable reciprocity or mutuality in which the perceiving and acting of the caregiver reflexively informs the perceiving and acting of the infant. Perceiving and acting in culturally relevant ways cultivates cultural knowing. Vignette 2. A few moments after the first attempts at orange peeling, Cecilia makes the task more difficult. This time she lifts the peel only part way through the pith. Angela pulls the peel but hasn't the strength to tear through the full length of the creased zest at such an angle. Her mother urges her, saying, jFue::rte= fuerte! 'Stro::ng=strong!', quickly followed by ;Du::ro= dwro.''Ha::rd=hard!'After more ineffectual tugging, Cecilia mimes "strong and hard" as well as a change in direc­ tion. First, she pretends to grasp some imaginary peel between thumb and fisted hand. Next she twists her hand/arm in an arc perpendicular to Angela's movements with evident effort. Angela promptly imitates her mother, holding the peel at a 90 4 For discussions of how social ecological realism concurs with and departs from theories of in­ direct perception, such as Vygotsky's, see Zukow-Goldring (1997).

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degree angle from the fruit. She rotates her wrist down and away from the orange. Her mother assists in the final tearing along the crease in the zest from top to bottom and in yanking off the peel. (Zukow, AGi6,11/8/91).8/91).

Throughout the entire orange-peeling interaction, Cecilia constantly adjusts what she says and does as she sees what Angela does and does not do next. In turn, Angela watches her mother and refines her next attempt. In this subsegment, Cecilia makes the trajectory and force necessary to peel the orange "seeable" helping Angela to perceive new opportunities for action. This continuous monitoring of each other's perceiving and acting attest to the con­ tinuous reciprocity of these cycles. Effectivities and Affordances.s. Just as perceiving and acting are indivisibly linked in cycles, acting itself is informed by the body's capabilities as well as by what the environment affords for action. By putting Angela through the motions of peeling the orange in the first vignette (pp. 139-140), Cecilia dis­ played the effectivities of a body like ours for action and what the environment affords for action with such a body. First, they held the orange steady. Then they felt and saw how fingers can firmly grasp the peel. That grasping permitted detecting what pulling with force against the securely held orange could do. In this way, the infant perceived new ways to use the body and new affordances for action in the environment.

PERCEIVING R E F E R R I N G ACTIONS

Euro-American, Middle-Class Infants This research focused on observable practices, the perceivable meaning of care­ giver messages in context, and infant comprehension (Zukow-Goldring, 1996). I investigated how infant and caregiver often achieved a practical understand­ ing of ongoing events when communication broke down. This longitudinal study followed five Euro-American middle-class infants from the infants' 6th month to the end of the one-word period at approximately 22 months. I proposed that caregivers made themselves understood by educating their infants' attention to the relation between what was happening and what was said. Caregivers and infants engaged in cycles of perceiving and acting that promoted the comprehension of speech. As events evolved, caregivers made prominent the inseparable reciprocity of effectivities of the body and the perceptual structure that afforded embodied action. As a matter of course, they related speech to ongoing events by making what they said perceptually available. Caregivers provided infants practice in perceiving referring actions. That is, caregivers regularly related speech to ongoing events by making what they said

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perceptually available and enticing to their infants. Following initially misunderstood caregiver messages, caregivers directed infants' attention with gestures to additional perceptual structure. This delicate "tailoring" of subsequent messages to infants contributed significantly to reaching a practical consensus. Caregivers also adjusted their verbal messages by making them more specific. In contrast, however, these modifications did not contribute to achieving a common understanding. Latino, Working-Class Infants Are attentive caregiving practices culture specific or ubiquitous? Do nonEuropean, non-middle-class caregivers delicately attune their subsequent behavior to their infants' prior actions? Scholars investigating language socialization in some Pacific cultures (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984) proposed that adult members of stratified societies, such as the native people of Western Samoa and the Kahluli of New Guinea, abstain from interaction styles that entail guessing what lower status persons, such as children, might need to know. Further, adults did not simplify speech to children. In the same vein, Rogoff and her colleagues (Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff, Mistry, Goncii, & Mosier, 1993) summa­ rizing the development of object use in Turkey, Guatemala, and India, stressed that children actively pick out what they need to know rather than receive close, adult guidance. However, Watson-Gegeo and Gegeo (1986) drew different con­ clusions from their work in the Pacific among the Kwara'ae of the Solomon Islands. They maintained that adult caregivers in this stratified society take a very active part in shaping their children's language and grasp of events. Knitting these strands together, Schieffelin and Ochs (1986) suggested that caregiving practices throughout the world may lie along a continuum from child-centered to adult-centered, rather than being sharply divided along class or technological lines. Even if adults in some rural-agrarian societies do not work at helping children understand ongoing events, others may do so. Sibling caregivers play an important role in their younger sisters' and brothers' development (Whiting & Edwards, 1988). Numerous investigations conducted in rural and workingclass communities throughout the world (Solomon Islands, Marquesas, Africa, and Mexico) attest to the carefully crafted, contingent behavior of older siblings (Zukow-Goldring, 1995). Interactions with siblings introduce younger family members to perceiving, acting, and knowing in culturally relevant ways. The evidence supporting attentive caregiving among adults in some societies may have been overlooked due to data collection methods that did not consider nonverbal or perceptual information. As a first step in re-evaluating the perva­ siveness of attentive caregiving practices, the present study assesses the caregiving methods of working class, immigrant, Latina caregivers and tests the generality of my prior findings among Euro-American families.

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METHOD

Participants Six working-class Latino families participated in this 2-year longitudinal study from the infant's 6th month through 30 months of age. These families resided in a largely Spanish-speaking suburb in the northeastern portion of Los Angeles, California. We contacted and interviewed families attending a local government assistance program, WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) or recommended by teachers at the local elementary school. The sample included one third-born, second daughter; one third- and one fourth-born, second son; two fourth-born, first daughters; and one fifth-born, first son. Procedure The data supporting this research consisted of an extensive collection of longitudinal records. These materials included 103 twenty-minute monthly video and audio recordings of naturalistic interaction at home, field notes of the care­ giver interpreting the infant's speech and actions, audio transcripts of each session, and diaries of lexical development documenting the daily lives of these families. The coders evaluated videotaped interactions assisted by audio transcripts and protocols developed to differentiate various aspects of attention-directing. Cohen's k ranged from 86.0% to 95.1%. (For more detailed descriptions of the procedure and coding protocols, see Zukow-Goldring, 1996,1997.) Attention-Directing Interactions As Gibson (1966) noted, "the adult who talks to a child can educate his attention to certain differences instead of others" (p. 282). These categories of interaction emerged from ethnographic observation of caregivers and children communicating in rural sites as well as in working-class and middle-class technological ones in Central Mexico (Zukow, 1989) and the Western United States (Zukow-Goldring & Ferko, 1994, Zukow-Goldring, 1996). I selected situations in which caregivers direct infants to notice one specific element, relation, or event over the countless other prospects available at any given time or in any particular setting. The collection of attention-directing interactions included all instances of perceptual imperatives expressed by care­ givers, such as mira 'look', oye 'listen', toca 'feel', and so forth, the accompanying gestures, and the gestures alone as well as the infants' subsequent actions. Attention-Directing Gestures. Five gestures that direct attention often accompany caregivers' verbal messages (Zukow, 1989, 1990). These gestures encompass varying degrees of other- to self-regulation of attention to the effectivities of the body and the affordances of the environment (Zukow­

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Goldring, 1996). During an embody a caregiver puts an infant through the motions of some activity (caregiver pulls infant down as he says, jbdjate! 'move down!'. When showing, caregivers regulate the infant's line of sight with a translational motion or perform some action using a familiar bodily effectivity to introduce a new possibility for action with an unfamiliar object or affor­ dance. For instance, the caregiver looms an object toward the infant, saying, gwow-wow 'wow-wow' while looming a puppy or pushes a lever on a new toy, saying, \empujalol 'push it!'. In demonstrations an infant who watches closely must detect or pick up in the perceptual flow a familiar coupling of effectivity and affordance to be duplicated. For example, the caregiver may synchronize rhythmically retracting fingers of an upright palm with saying, adiocito 'bye­ bye' when catching gaze and smiling. Alternately, an infant may be asked to pretend to avoid the sharp spines of a "tuna" (prickly pear) while the caregiver mimes approaching and pulling away from the fruit's surface, saying, \espinoso! 'prickly!'. In points, the infant must detect where a gesture's trajectory through space converges with some target of attention (the caregiver pointing to and saying, p'acd 'over here'). Lastly, during looks no gestures accompany the caregiver's speech. Instead, only the caregiver's words and gaze direct the infant to correlate attention with that of the caregiver. Target of Attention Directing. Caregiver messages combine gestures with targets of attention. In messages caregivers express what persists and changes as events coalesce and disperse. The targets include nondynamic objects/animate beings (toys, people), agent-action-object-recipient of action sequences (mother, throws, ball, child), as well as sequences specifying location (patch of dirt), instruments (eating utensils, crayons), part/whole relations (hair/head), and possession (my, your). Caregiver messages in both cultures communicate perceptual structure and/or semantic functions that are a step or two ahead of those expressed in infants' speech (Zukow-Goldring, 1997,1999). Sequences Containing Initially Misunderstood Caregiver Messages This corpus of attention-directing interactions contains all sequences in which infants displayed misunderstanding of the caregiver's initial message (N= 803). We evaluated all subsequent messages expressing the same target of attention to determine whether caregiver and child achieved a practical understanding. Consensus. We assessed whether or not caregivers treated their infants' response to each message in a sequence as suitable or not. Classroom studies of students and teachers informed our coding procedures (Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Tenenberg, 1988; Zukow-Goldring, Romo, & Duncan, 1994). For instance, for lack of consensus the caregivers repeated or revised messages, gave up, and/or made statements, such as, no

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quieres'you don't want to'. In contrast, caregivers displayed achieving consensus by saying /si/, \bravol, ;lo /ticiste/'yeah!, good!, you did it!' or by embellishing the ongoing event. Perceptual Structure. Messages lacking gesture often initiated a sequence, such as ;mira, pelalal'look, peel it!' as the caregiver looked at the orange held by the child. In the next message, she might point with head or hand at the orange. We would code that message as perceptual structure (PS) = '+' and gesture = point. Then, the caregiver might pull up a bit of peel for the infant to pull off (+, demonstration). Finally, she might wrap her arms around the infant's, placing her hands on the child's, and peel with her (+, embody). Alternatively, the caregiver might repeat by pointing at the orange again (-, point) or omit perceptual structure as she gazes at the orange and says, /pelala! 'peel it!' (-, look). If the caregiver furnished more perceptual structure in any one message within a sequence, then PS ='+'; if not, then PS ='-'. Linguistic Specificity. A caregiver might initiate by expressing the verb ex­ plicitly and the object with a pronoun, such as \mira, pelala!'look, peel it!' In an ensuing utterance, he might say jmira, pela la naranjal'look, peel the orange!' We coded such utterances as adding linguistic specificity (+). In contrast, the care­ giver might express the message less precisely using only prowords, such as pro­ nouns and proverbs (/Haz/o/'Do it!'). The latter would be coded as supplying less linguistic specificity (-). If the caregiver provided more linguistic specificity in any one message within a sequence, then IS ='+'; if not, then LS —'-'. Expressive Level of the Infant Prelinguistic Level. At the prelinguistic level caregivers treated two or fewer of their infants' vocalizations as lexical items. (See Table 7.1 for the infants' ages at each expressive level.) T A B L E 7-1

Ages in Months of Latino Infants at Each Expressive Level BC

AG

RG

CM

JS

JZ

6-15*

6-11*

16-24

12-21

Infant Expressive Level Prelinguistic 6-16

6-13*

6-15*

6-10 Lexical

17-23

15-24

17-24

11-23*

Note: *No data available for AG at 14 months, for RG at 16 months, for CM at 18 months, JS at 6 and 14 months, JZ at 16 months.

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Lexical Level. Two criteria marked an infant as having attained the lexical level. Either an infant produced three different exemplars within one category or expressed one exemplar in each of three categories within the first level of the one-word period. Speech occurring during videotapings plus diary data composed each infant's corpus of utterances. At the first level, the doing and the saying of a word co-occur in three situations. These interactive settings entail when the infant notices the self's perceiving (pointing at and saying, mama 'mama'); notices affordances for action (reaching and whining while saying, eta 'ki' [galleta 'cookie']); and notices the effectivities of the self's body for action (falling or throwing down and saying, cae'down').5 At the second level, infants may express lexically agent, action/state, object, or recipient. During the third level, infants express location, possession, instrument, whole/part relations and more. When the infants expressed more utterances with multiple morphemes than single ones, between 21 and 24 months of age, we categorized the infant as beyond the one-word period. QUANTITATIVE RESULTS

The principal aim of the following analyses was to confirm whether providing more perceptual structure significantly related to achieving a practical under­ standing, whereas its absence related to a lack of consensus. To establish the interdependence of five variables—perceptual structure (F), linguistic specificity (L), consensus (C), expressive level of the infant (£), and subject (S)— the observed frequencies6 were submitted to a multivariate frequency analysis, BMDP4F (Dixon, 1983), using log-linear methods. A series of nested models was constructed to test the significance of the possible associations between the variables. The simplest model of independence as well as the 30 models of conditional independence listed in Table 7.2 provide the basis for generating specific hypotheses (Wickens, 1989). (For a detailed explanation of the basis for generating these specific models, see Zukow-Goldring, 1996.) The use of difference testing permits examination of the adequacy of two related models. In difference testing, the null model comprised of specific associations is compared with an alternative model. The alternative model contains the same terms as well as introduces the association to be tested. The difference between the overall goodness-of-fit statistic, G2, for the two models constitutes the test statistic. The term G2 represents this difference. For example, look at Models 11 and 12 in Tables 7.2 and 7.3 to ascertain whether the 5 These categories derive from ecological realism. Noticing the self's perceiving replaces "indicative object"; noticing affordances supersedes "volitionals"; noticing the effectivities of the self's body takes the place of "performative" (Greenfield & Smith, 1976; Zukow, Reilly, & Greenfield, 1982). 6 For copies of the frequency data, please contact the author.

T A B L E 7-2

\j-i 0

Models of Conditional Independence Model

i. 2.

3456. 78. 910.

11. 12. 131415-

[E][S][P][L][C] [PCES][LCES] [PCES][LCES][PL] [PCES][LCES][PLC] [PCES][LCES][PLE] [PCES][LCES][PLS] [LPES][CPES] [LPES][CPES][LC] [LPES][CPES][LCE] [LPES][CPES][LCS] [PLES][CLES] [PLES][CLES][PC] [PLES][CLES][PCE] [PLES][CLES][PCS] [LSPC][ESPC]

N C n

G2

d.f. 86

O f

21

O

20

r~ D

19

TO

19

Z O

[LC]: Linguistic specificity, consensus [LCE]: Linguistic specificity, consensus, expressive level [LCS]: Linguistic specificity, consensus, subject

493-54 48.86 12.86 12.70 12.79 11.05 45.04 17.85 16.77 11.83

24

[PC]: Perceptual structure, consensus [PCE]: Perceptual structure, consensus, expressive level [PCS]: Perceptual structure, consensus, subject

246.73 36.99 21.85 21.94 33-83

21

Association Introduced (Simplest model of independence) [PL]: [PLC]: [PLE]: [PLS]:

Perceptual Perceptual Perceptual Perceptual

structure, linguistic specificity structure, linguistic specificity, consensus structure, linguistic specificity, expressive level structure, linguistic specificity, subject

15 21 20 19 15

23 22 15

o

16. [LSPC][ESPC][LE] 17. [LEPC][SEPC]

[LE]:

Linguistic specificity, expressive level

18. [LEPC][SEPC][LS]

[LS]:

Linguistic specificity, subject

19. [LEPC][SEPC][LSE] 20. [CSPL][ESPL]

[LSE]: Linguistic specificity, subject, expressive level

26.72 49.82

21. [CSPL][ESPL][CE]

[CE]:

Consensus, expressive level

49-30 63.81

20

23. [CEPL][SEPL][CS] 24. [CEPL][SEPL][CSE] 25. [PSCL][ESCL]

[CS]: Consensus, subject [CSE]: Consensus, subject, expressive level

35 30

26. [PSCL][ESCL][PE] 27. [PELC][SELC]

[PE]:

28. [PELC][SELC][PS] 29. [PELC][SELC][PSE] 30. [PLCE][PLCS]

[PS]: Perceptual structure, subject [PSE]: Perceptual structure, subject, expressive level

31.

[SE]:

54-9 7 33.38 42.07 40.86 51.76 38.70 31.21 165.43 68.55

22. [CEPL][SEPL]

[PLCE][PLCS][SE]

Perceptual structure, expressive level

Subject, expressive level

33-71 46.71 40.24

20

37 32 27 21

40

21 20 40

35

30 37 32

152

ZUKOW-GOLDRINC

association between perceptual structure P and consensus C, PC, makes a significant contribution. G 2 (23) = 246.73 G 2 (22) = 36.99

[PLES][CLES] [PLES][CLES][PC] xpc

AG z (i) = 209.74,p < 0.025

The difference between Models 11 and 12 (246.73 - 36.07 = 209.74, on 23 ­ 22 = i degrees of freedom) is significant (p < 0.025), demonstrating that the PC association is necessary. (See Wickens, 1989, for precise explication of model testing.) Results from the complete model-fitting procedure listed in Table 7.3 revealed that five two-way associations reached significance. In addition to PC, the other bases of dependence included S£, PL, LC, PS, CS, and PE The significant three-way associations consisted of CSE, PSE, and PCE. However, evaluating the importance of an association requires both statistical signifi­ cance and accounting for a large increment in fit (Abelson, 1997; Wickens, 1989). Calculating the increment in fit achieved by the various models assesses the magnitude of each association. The terms of AGVG, where G2 is the value for the simplest model (Model i), express the increment in fit or degree of rela­ tive change. For example, consider the addition of A,PCto Model 12. In this case, AG 2 /G = 209.74/493.54 = 42.5% of the relative change possible. According to the complete analysis of relative change, summarized in Table 7.2, PC ac­ counted for the largest increase in fit, 42.59 %. SEexplained a somewhat smaller change of 35.9%, whereas the others contributed much more modestly. The largest among the latter, PL and LC, accounted for 7.3% and 5.5% respectively.

FIG . 7.1

The relation between perceptual structure and consensus, PC.

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Perceiving Referring Actions

153

T A B L E 7.3

Tests of specific hypotheses Models tested

Associations d.f.

Model 2 - Model 3 Model 3 - Model 4 Model 3 - Model 5 Model 3 - Model 6 Model 7 - Model 8 Model 8 - Model 9 Model 8 - Model 10 Model 11 - Model 12 Model 12 - Model 13 Model 12 - Model 14 Model 15 - Model 16 Model 17 - Model 18 Model 17 - Model 19 Model 20 - Model 21 Model 22 - Model 23 Model 23 - Model 24 Model 25 - Model 26 Model 27 - Model 28 Model 28 - Model 29 Model 30 - Model 31

(PL M>LC

WE Ws

(u: (LCE (LCS

(PC VPCE VPCS

(G2

Relative change (%)

i i i

36.00** 0.16 0.07

5 i i 5 i i 8

1.71 27.19** 1.08 6.02 209.74* 15.14** 15.05

7-3 0.0 0.0

0.3 5-5 0.2 1.2

42.5 3-1 3.0

(LH

1

0.12

0.0

(LS

5

6.47

5 i 5 5

13.52* 0.52 8.84 21.59**

1-3 2-7

1

1.21

0.2

5

13.06*

2.6

5 5

7-49 96.88*

1-5 19.6

(LSE (CE

(cs (CSE (PE

(PS CpSE

(SE

0.1

1.8 4-4

Note. *p
The strongest effect, PC, demonstrates that increasing attention to perceptual structure robustly related to achieving a practical consensus, whereas neglecting to do so was associated with a failure to achieve consensus (see Fig. 7.1). The probability of caregiver and child reaching a practical under­ standing of ongoing events rarely occurred after an initial misunderstanding unless the caregiver provided additional perceptual structure. The infantcaregivers pairs diverged substantially in the frequency with which these sequences occurred during the prelinguistic and one-word levels (SE). The frequency of these sequences remained nearly equal as the infants developed for three families, the proportion decreased in one family, and for two increased. PL simply shows that adding linguistic specificity seldom took place without an increment in perceptual structure. As predicted, greater linguistic specificity did not relate significantly to reaching a practical understanding (LC). Reaching a common understanding occurred nearly sixty percent of the time when care­ givers did not provide additional linguistic specificity. The other significant

154

ZUKOW-GOLDRING

associations account for little of the relative change (CSE with 3.2%, PSE with 3.1%, PS with 2.6%, PS with 2.4%, PC£with 1.0%). Comparing the Latino and the Euro-American Studies Among Latinos the association, PC, accounted for more of the variability in the data than among Euro-Americans (42.5% of the relative change as compared to 29.5%). Simply put: Latina caregivers gesture substantially more often than their Euro-American counterparts. Latina families engage in these sequences more than twice as often as Euro-American families (6.9 per tape compared to 2.9). Multiple gestures within a message occur nearly five times as often for Latinos as Euro-Americans (2.2 per session for the former, .47 for the latter). For example, in the jpelala! 'peel it!' vignette, the verbal message expressing manner of action, jFue::rte=fuerte! 'Stro::ng=strong!', quickly followed by another, \Du::ro-duro\ 'Ha::rd=hard!', did not resolve message ambiguity. Instead, the multilayered gesture which conveyed both a change in the manner of the action (pulling hard) and in the trajectory of the action (pulling at a 90 degree angle) resulted in the infant's pulling the peel from the orange with greater force and at a different angle. Most importantly, the verbal message did not express the change in trajectory. Beneficial or not, why do members of one language community use such methods more frequently than the other? Analyses of language typology taken up in the discussion imply a source of these differences and their significance. DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSES

Achieving Consensus: Adding Perceptual Structure with No Increase in Linguistic Specificity (PC) Vignette 3. Rodrigo, a prelinguistic infant of 14 months, and his father, Salvador, play in the family living room. Rodrigo stands a few feet from his father holding a plastic coffee can lid. Salvador crouching on his heels calls out to his son, [Dale vueltita=avientala\ 'Spin it=toss it!'. Rodrigo continues to stand as he watches his father. Salvador claps his hands to gather attention, then extends his hands toward his son as he says, jAvientalal'Toss it!'. Rodrigo drops and picks up the lid repeat­ edly. A few seconds later, Salvador claps again, mimes throwing with both hands several times in rapid succession, and then elaborately simulates a one-handed toss as he says, \Avienta\a-da\e vueltital'Toss it=spin it!'. Rodrigo tosses the lid to his fa­ ther. (Zukow, RGi4,10/29/90) In the first utterance of this sequence, Salvador does not coordinate his speech with gesture. He does not increase the linguistic specificity of his messages in any way during the turns that follow, but simply repeats himself

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155

partially or in full. In contradistinction, Salvador draws attention to himself by clapping in the next two turns and makes more perceptual structure prominent and available in each. First, he extends his hand to catch the lid, providing a potential and see-able end point for tossing. That is, his up-turned palm affords receiving the lid. When Rodrigo does not respond by throwing the lid to his father, Salvador simultaneously enacts the effectivities of the body required to toss the lid and the path of the lid. He mimes the path of the arm-hand-lid with two hands. Then, very slowly he draws the trajectory again through time/space with one hand. Salvador brought his son's attention to the affordance of the hand for receiving, to the effectivities of the body for tossing, and to the path of action. This father's demonstrating of lid tossing enables his son to understand and enact the message. Lack of Achieving Consensus: No Increase in Perceptual Structure Accompanied by Increasing Linguistic Specificity Vignette 4. In this sequence, Beto, a prelinguistic child of 12 months, plays with his mother, Carla, on the living room floor. She coordinates gesture and talk as she requests toys, while he watches and then retrieves a variety of objects for her. Then Carla points swiftly toward a toy car nearby as she says, jDdmelol'Give it to me!'. Beto cannot see the gesture. His mother watches him and repeats, /£/ carrito, Beto! 'The little car, Beto!'. He crawls toward and past the car as Carla calls out the action ellipted from the prior message, jAvientdmelo, O.K?'Toss it to me, OK?'. Beto does not respond. (Zukow, BCi2, 5/13/91) Carla tells Beto what action to do with a verb that does not specify manner (da 'give') and indicates what (lo 'it') and whom (me 'me') to notice with pronouns. In her ensuing utterances, she names the element (carrito 'little car') and elaborates the verb by telling him the manner in which to give (avienta 'toss'). However, she does not gather attention nor direct him to any additional perceptual structure that might permit him to detect the affordances and effec­ tivities needed to participate in the activity. This sequence underscores that increasing linguistic specificity does not resolve ambiguity for infants just learning to talk. DISCUSSION Gestures do speak louder than words when Latina working class, Spanishspeaking caregivers review message ambiguity with their infants. During the prelinguistic and one-word periods Latino caregivers routinely provided a perceptual restructuring of events for their infants following communicative breakdowns. This attentive adjusting of subsequent messages to infants contributed significantly to achieving a common understanding. Caregivers

156

ZUKOW-GOLDRING

also modified their utterances in ensuing turns by making them more specific. In contrast, however, these elaborations did not contribute significantly to reaching a practical consensus. These findings document that attentive caregiving practices are not limited to the Euro-American middle-class adults. In fact, these methods occur with greater density in Latino households. Future research can verify the pervasive­ ness and effectiveness of these methods intra- and interculturally. Why Do Latino Caregivers Gesture More Frequently? Both Latino and Euro-American infants shifted from predominantly one-word speech to the multiword level between 19 and 29 months of age.7 Clearly more or less gesturing does not impede achieving that milestone. Both sets of care­ givers use the same set of gestures and directed attention to a similar set of semantic functions. The Latino caregivers simply gestured more frequently. The question that remains is why. Investigations informed by linguistic typology offer some answers. Talmy (1985) proposed a linguistic typology that contrasts satellite-framed languages, such as English, with verb-framed ones, such as Spanish. Slobin (1996) elaborated these notions based on an analysis of various texts. English verbs of movement typically express manner of action (stroll, meander) in contrast to direction (cross [the street]). To the verb, speakers add details (satellites) of the path taken, including origin, object, goal, place, landmarks, and agent, with prepositional phrases, particles, and adverbs in the main clause. In contrast, Spanish motion verbs often express direction (bajar'to go down', subir'to go up') and the crossing of boundaries (metir 'put in', entrar 'go in'), but rarely manner. To express changes in direction, the crossing of more than one boundary, and manner, the Spanish speaker usually must add subordinate clauses or separate sentences. For instance, in English, we can say, he ran into the house, expressing manner with the verb (ran) and crossing a boundary with a prepositional phrase (into the house) within the same clause. In contrast, in Spanish, this sentence requires two verb forms (entro 'entered', corriendo 'running'): el entro en la casa, corriendo'he entered the house, running'. Exploring these constraints further, Slobin has speculated that Spanishspeakers need not explicitly express manner in text. Instead, they can infer manner from an author's descriptions of the setting. For example, a reader can assume swirling water from details of the scene, such as a rocky stream. In narratives, McNeill (1998) investigated native speakers retelling stories in Spanish or in English. He reported that the distribution of manner gestures differed for both adults and children depending on the narrator's natal 7 This age range closely approximates the span reported for English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, and Hebrew infants (Zukow-Goldring, 1998).

7

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157

language. Spanish speakers produced considerably more manner gestures when expressing path, object, and goal than English speakers. Manner, then, is not absent in Spanish, but may speak in a different voice through gesture. The same may hold for successive changes in direction and boundary crossings, that is, when Cecilia expressed manner (strong, hard) in speech followed by both manner and change in direction with gesture (Vignette 2). Several factors may contribute to the frequency of gesturing among Latino caregivers. The studies informed by differences in linguistic typology suggest that Spanish-speaking caregivers may gesture far more often when expressing motion because the path details are not habitually made explicit or concisely expressible in Spanish. Given the linguistic constraints of Spanish and the pervasive finding that caregivers consistently simplify speech to infants (Snow, 1972), Spanish speakers may gesture more often to overcome these limitations in spoken messages. These language and gestural differences have far-ranging implications for future theorizing and research in semiotics, pragmatics, linguistics, psychology, and education. For instance, do speakers of verb-framed languages gesture more often due to lack of elaboration in some word classes or did a more com­ plex gestural system precede and, thus, preclude the necessity of elaborating verbs of motion as English, a satellite language, does? At a more applied level, how people with different (cultural) views of the world and levels of expertise (novice, expert, perceptually impaired, or aging) clear up communicative breakdowns surely will depend on how members correlate gesture and speech, whether at home, at school, or at work. Other Current Approaches to the Caregiving Environment In harmony with social ecological realism, both the rare event transactional model of language acquisition and delay (Nelson, Welsh, Heimann, Tjus, & Camarata, chap. 8, this volume) as well as the dynamic systems approach (Peltzer-Karpf & Zangl, chap. 9, this volume) treat the caregiving environment as crucial to language learning. They, too, reject arguments that minimal input guarantees adequate development. Neither approach, however, accounts for children perceiving the relation between speech and ongoing events. Rare Event Learning. Nelson and his colleagues focus on the whole child in their analysis of the conditions that facilitate taking significant steps toward language (Nelson & Welsh, 1998; Nelson et al., chap, 9, this volume). Importantly, Nelson and his coworkers reserve judgment and do not assume that cognitive or linguistic deficits in the child account for language delays. Instead, they urge enriching input to act as a catalyst for learning new structures. Caregivers (teachers, therapists, parents) can devise "tricky mixes" from multiple systems (perceptual, social, affective, cognitive, motor, and more)

158

ZUKOW-GOLDRING

to make input "accessible" (Nelson et al, 1998) or "comprehensible" (Krashen, 1985). Adroit recasting of children's speech can introduce new linguistic devices, as caregivers continuously adjust what they say, depending on the child's moment-by-moment progress. Implications for Children With Delayed Language. Our empirical approaches overlap. We both consider the entire child, rather than one developmental piece at a time. Both, as well, consider the dynamic environment, especially the rich scaffolding that caregivers can provide. However, a social ecological realist approach may provide a method to unpackage "accessible" and "comprehensible" input. As Nelson and Welsh (1998) note, researchers must see what works best to design treatment programs for perceptually impaired and normal children with language delays. Taking a close look at how caregivers link perceptual structure with linguistic messages may open up new techniques to therapists. Caregivers who assist the child to notice how the body relates to action may give the language-delayed child a better foundation for detecting affordances in daily activities and for understanding speech, especially if care­ giver messages concomitantly mark the relation between speech and what is happening. "Descriptive" attention-directing messages may offer a place to start. Recently, Conti-Ramsden and Perez-Pereira (in press) reported about a corpus of highly descriptive directives to a blind child, speculating that this verbal information should help the blind organize what they know about the environment. For instance, the following two examples tell the child how to use the body to perceive possibilities for action in the environment: "Look at it with your nose to see what it smells like" and "Put this hand out and search for it, look for it with this hand." Whereas the utterances tell how to use the body in the activity, how a blind child can relate what is said to what cannot be seen remains very problematic. Someone needs to put the child in touch simultane­ ously with the words and the event to which they refer. A most vivid example comes from the life of Helen Keller. Helen continu­ ously mixed up the fingerspelled words "mug" and "milk." Annie Sullivan, her teacher, searched for a way to differentiate liquids from containers. One morn­ ing, Miss Sullivan placed Helen's hand under a spout to fill her mug. As Annie pumped water, she fingerspelled "w-a-t-e-r" on Helen's free palm. In her own version, Helen Keller (1954) noted, As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water.... I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. (P-33) About the same "rare event," Miss Sullivan wrote, The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light

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came into her face. She spelled "water" several times.... All the way back to the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object she touched, so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary. (Keller, 1954, P- 257)

Thus, "saying and doing" by embodying the child may make reference perceivable for the blind as well. Can the characteristics and effectiveness of correlated gesture and speech be measured? Some recent investigations support my proposal that amodal invari­ ants or regularities of onset/offset, rhythm, tempo, intensity, and so on nesting both gesture and speech may act as the Rosetta stone that eventually cracks the linguistic code (Gogate & Bahrick, 1998; Zukow-Goldring, 1997; ZukowGoldring & Rader, 1998). Research involving individuals with different perceptual and developmental impairments, such as individuals who are deaf or autistic, would consider other means of expressing perceptual information/ structure and of detecting amodal regularities. Dynamic Systems. Proponents of dynamic systems critique the goals of prevailing cognitive theories and information-processing approaches that con­ verge on establishing the "what" and "when" of developing behaviors (Thelen & Smith, 1994). Instead, a dynamic system delineates "how" subsystems of the or­ ganism and the environment come together to produce behavior in service of an activity. Within a dynamic systems framework, researchers analyze how mul­ tiple levels of functioning in an individual through time "self­ organize" to produce a new behavior. Their integration of micro and macro levels of functioning provides a more comprehensive and powerful explanation of complex behaviors, surpassing those of traditional theories (Aslin, 1993; Goldfield, 1993). However, the question of "why" a child might walk or talk remains unexplored within this system of analysis. Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl (chap. 9, this volume) carefully document the characteristics of caregiver speech and the child's past experience that affect the emergence of plurals. Detecting salient prosodic features of speech and hearing frequent exemplars explain the emergence of plurals in terms of physics and physiology, but not psychology. That is, how the child knows that plurals refer to multiples in the environment and why a child would talk about objects in a set remains unexplained.8 8 What prevents a child from relating plural morphology to anything at all that attracts the child's attention while hearing a particularly salient prosodic pattern? The child might be watching a fly hover over her soup, intently scratching a mosquito bite, struggling to pull a piece from a puzzle, while the caregiver looks at some dolls while saying, Do::llies\. When might the child be expected to say dollies1. In one documented case of misnaming, a caregiver enthusiastically pointed to a tree, say­ ing, tree!, while her toddler looked at a dog barking beyond the tree. To the caregiver's chagrin, the child exclaimed, tree! the next time she heard a dog barking (Braunwald, 1978).

l6o

ZUKOW-GOLDRING

A melding of ecological realism and dynamic systems may resolve this dilemma. Ecological realists have described and investigated how organisms perceive and know the environments that surround them to a far greater degree than systems scholars. However, a dynamic systems approach provides a more coherent explanation and method for studying emerging processes through the mutuality of organism and environment. Therefore, a merging of these approaches would benefit developmental research and theory (Dent-Read & Zukow-Goldring, 1997). Enlarging the Picture Does language window attention? Does attention inform/propagate language? Yes, and yes. Years ago, Bates (1979) remarked that there was a "lot of borrow­ ing going on" as she proposed that language development grew out of cognitive underpinnings. I concur regarding the "borrowing," but suggest perceiving as the source rather than cognizing. Examining the information/structure provided in caregiver messages as infant becomes toddler might provide a rich ground for illuminating the perceptual origins of some basic characteristics of language. "Icons" of modifying, concatenating, nesting, and serial order abound as caregivers mark the relation between speech and the elements to which they refer. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Spencer Foundation and the Michelle F. Elkind Foundation sponsored this research. I wish to express my gratitude to Kelly Ferko, Laura Romo, Andrea Aguiar, Mirella Dapretto, and Karen Hernandez for assisting with the coding, data collection, and transcription. REFERENCES Abelson, R. P. (1997). On the surprising longevity of flogged horses: Why there is a case for the significance test. Psychological Science, 8,12-15. Adamson, L., Bakeman, R., & Smith, C. B. (1988). Gestures, words, and early object sharing. In V. Volterra & C. Erting (Eds.), From gesture to language in hearing and deaf children (pp. 31-41). New York: Springer-Verlag. Aslin, R. N. (1993). Commentary: The strange attractiveness of dynamic systems to development. In L. Smith & E. Thelen (Eds.), A dynamic systems approach to development: Applications (pp. 385-399). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bates, E. (1979). The emergence of symbols: Cognition and communication in infancy. New York: Academic Press. Bates, E., Bretherton, I., & Snyder, L. (1988). From first words to grammar: Individual differences and dissociable mechanism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bloom, C. (1993). The transition from infancy to language. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Braunwald, S. (1978). Context, word and meaning: Toward a communicational analysis of lexical acquisition. In A. Lock (Ed.), Action, gesture, and symbol: The emergence of language (pp. 285-327). London: Academic Press. Conti-Ramsden, G., & Perez-Pereira, M. (in press). Conversational interaction between mothers and their infants: The case of congential blindness. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. Dent-Read, C. & Zukow-Goldring, P. (1997). Introduction: Ecological realist, epigenetic systems, and dynamic systems approaches to development. Evolving explanations of development: Ecological approaches to organism-environment systems (pp. 1-22). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Dixon, W. J. (Chief Ed.). (1983). BMDP Statistical Software. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge: The development of understanding in the classroom. London: Routledge. Erneling, C. E. (1993). Understanding language acquisition: The framework of learning. Albany,NY: State University of New York Press. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gogate, L. J., & Bahrick, L. E. (1998). Intersensory redundancy facilitates learning of arbitrary rela­ tions between vowel sounds and objects in seven-month-old infants. Journal of Experimental Ch ild Psychology, 69,133 -14 9. Goldfield, E. (1993). Dynamic systems in development: Action systems. In L. Smith & E. Thelen (Eds.), A dynamic systems approach to development: Applications (pp. 51-70). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96, 606-633. Greenfield, P. M., & Smith, J. S. (1976). The structure of communication in early language develop­ ment. New York: Academic Press. Harris, M., Jones, D., & Grant, J., (1983). The nonverbal context of mothers' speech to infants. First Language, 4, 21-30. Keller, H. (19 54). The story of my life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. New York: Longman. Lynch, M. (1993). Scientific practice and ordinary action: Ethnomethodology and social studies of sci­ ence. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Macbeth, D. (1994). Classroom encounters with the unspeakable: "Do you see, Danelle?". Discourse Processes, 17,311-335. Markman, E. M. (1989). Categorization and naming in children: Problems of induction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McNeill, D. (1985). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McNeill, D. (1998). Speech and gesture integration. In J. M. Iverson & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), The nature and functions of gesture in children's communication (pp. 11-27). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Messer, D. J. (1983). The redundancy between adult speech and nonverbal interaction: A contribu­ tion to acquisition? In R. M. Golinkoff (Ed.), The transition from prelinguistic to linguistic communication (pp. 147-165). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Michaels, C. E, & Carello, C. (1981). Direct perception. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Millikan, R. (1984). Language, thought, and other biologicalcategories: New foundations for realism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Moerman, M. (1988). Talking culture: Ethnography and conversation analysis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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A Rare Event Transactional Model of Tricky Mix Conditions Contributing to Language Acquisition and Varied Communicative Delays

KEITH E. N E L S O N JANET M. WELSH

Pennsylvania State University STEPHEN M. CAMARATA

Vanderbilt University T O M A S TJ US MIKAEL HEIMANN

Gothenburg University

Transactional theory assumes developmental outcomes are the result of dynamic interactions between the child and the environment, and that devel­ opmental disorders such as language delays or reading difficulties in autistic and deaf children are multiply determined and must always be viewed in context. This chapter builds on the foundation of prior theoretical papers to provide a more detailed account at the theoretical level of progress (or lack of progress) made by autistic children, language delayed deaf and hearing children, and other children in varied communicative domains—spoken language, signed language, literacy, and art. This account includes a moderately detailed presentation of the Rare Event Transactional Model (Nelson, 1981, 1987,1998; Nelson & Camarata, 1997; Nelson, Welsh, Camarata, Heimann, & Tjus, 1996; Nelson & Welsh, 1998). It also incorporates some new data from ongoing research by the authors and provides discussion for varied sets of children of new intervention strategies that are prompted by the theoretical framework. 165

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The frequently persistent nature of delay in multiple communicative modes by most autistic children and by some hearing and deaf language-delayed children might be reconceptualized as a long-term series of child-context trans­ actions. The environment (at preschool and school as well as home) commonly fails to provide processable language-learning and text-learning experiences for the child. The child responds to encountered contexts and also contributes by quite often failing to elicit appropriate support or to focus available learning mechanisms (possibly including some component processes with significant weaknesses) on whatever useful input is available (cf. Yoder, 1989). In brief form, here are the central tenets of the Rare Event Transactional Model: 1. Each of the many variations on delayed, normative, and accelerated progress in communicative skills is produced by multiple factors in interaction. Across different children there are substantial differences in how particular social, emotional, perceptual, motor, linguistic, and cognitive factors interact. Successful learning in any communicative mode, however, always involves what we term a Tricky Mix of multiple, positive, and converging cognitive, communicative, social, emotional, and self-esteem factors. These Tricky Mixes must arise on a great many occasions across the course of acquiring a complex symbolic domain, but particular acquisition steps also may be based on "rare events" in which one or a few learning episodes support significant acquisition. 2. Children's strengths and weaknesses in processing capacities and in social, emo­ tional, and self-management patterns influence the pace of language acquisition by affecting the uptake (or lack of uptake) of input examples. 3. Children's strengths and weaknesses in processing capacities and in social, emo­ tional, expectancy, and self-management patterns also influence indirectly how language and literacy acquisition proceed by affecting the frequency and quality of interactions with others. 4. Input variations strongly affect the pace of language acquisition and the probability and severity of language delay and literacy delay. Among negative components of input are few stage-relevant challenges, too rapid or too slow communicative examplars, few discourse facilitators of processing (such as recasts), partner discourse styles that diminish child self-esteem and communica­ tive initiative, and few favorable social-emotional conditions. 5. Motor encoding and planning abilities affect progress in acquiring all modes of communication. 6. Complex interrelations in real time arise during acquisition between underlying representations of nonlinguistic events and online production, online compre­ hension, and online analyses of communicative challenges in assorted modes and communicative contexts. 7. Progress in spoken language, sign language, literacy, and communication through art depends on dynamic transactions between the child and interactional partners over time, influenced by all of tenets 2 through 6.

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LEARN CONDITIONS

Another way of emphasizing dynamically interacting transactional conditions is the following LEARN scheme. As we see when looking later at specific subsets of children and communicative goals, for different children in different con­ texts there are a great many different routes to combining these LEARN conditions into some effective Tricky Mix. L: Launching Conditions require new challenges of some sort. These conditions also include attention to challenging structures, typically some initial abstraction attempts that produce no new representations, and then abstraction and storage in long-term memory of some partial information about the challenges. For example, children learning to read might encode into long-term memory some partial representation of text structures that are challenges for their current developmental levels; some information about the placement of who could be encoded, as for relative clauses such as "The girl who has the purple shoes won the race." E: Enhancing Conditions. The probability of learning increases substantially when intuitively guided interactions or planning (Pennington & Ozonoff, 1996) provides multiple processing enhancers (e.g., paraphrases, challenge-carrying recasts, rapid interplay of multiple information channels) that minimize competing processing demands and that specifically scaffold comparison and abstraction processes in working memory. Other examples of enhancers are adult emotional availability (Pressman et al., 1998), and adult and child strategies that fit learning goals as well as the current context of learning. Also of relevance are attributions to the child for effort and success, fun and humor, and a sense of connection to other children encountering similar challenges. Learning of new communicative skills may further be enhanced by settings and strategies that bring out the child's persistence, planfulness, and monitoring of plans. In some cases, a child with communicative delays may be shifted to available daycare or preschool where a rich favorable "package" of enhancers is already in place (cf. Fillmore, 1989; Rice & Hadley, 1995). A: Adjustment Conditions concern ongoing adjustments in the learner that are influenced by partner, setting, and many other variables. Some regulatory steps are almost always required to promote processing of relevant changes (D'Amasio, 1994; Nelson, 1987,1989,1998). When such regulation goes well, low anxiety, high self-esteem, strong and persistent motivation, appropriate emotional states, cultural identity, and friendship and emotional bonding can all dynamically converge with other learning conditions. In naturalistic, longitudinal research, certain qualities of child temperament may directly contribute to the child's positive adjustment conditions and indirectly influence dynamic positive interactions with conversa­ tional partners. For example, Slomkowski, Nelson, Dunn, and Plomin (1992) reported that later levels (ages 3 and 7 years) of high language skills were predicted by the child's high scores on Affect-Extraversion at 2 years of age. The components

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of high Affect-Extraversion were the following: low fearfulness, high interest in other persons, high cooperativeness, and high happiness. R: Readiness Conditions include many aspects of preparedness (e.g., familiarity with teaching scripts, prior knowledge, importance to self-esteem) for new challenges, all of which are influenced by prior cycles of teaching and learning. Degree of intactness of learning mechanisms, though hard to estimate for many children with disabilities, is also very important. N: Network Conditions. New structures need to be well integrated into repre­ sentational networks. Convergent learning conditions favoring such integration include many enhancers and smooth adjustments (see previous conditions) and some sustained active processing. For example, for some children who acquire the English auxiliary, an early, incomplete phase of acquisition is followed by clear evidence of integration. The new auxiliaries at that later point are integrated into the overall linguistic network representations, with correct use where required in w/i-questions, yes/no questions (e.g., Is that goat eating the hat?), and related sentence types. In normally developing children, increases across ages 5 to 10 years in network efficiency for all subdomains of language depend upon continued brain maturation, the cumululation of extensive experience with spoken and written language, and learning episodes that bring excellent learning conditions together to support continued refinement of structural representations.

These five categories of conditions are essential, and unless the probability of each is above zero, then in a multiplicative fashion the dynamic joint probabil­ ity of learning will also drop to zero. High rates of learning will be produced only in the presence of a positive set of conjoint conditions, described in the preceding section as a Tricky Mix. H E A R I N G C H I L D R E N IN K I N D E R G A R T E N WITH LANGUAGE DELAY

Children in ordinary kindergarten classrooms often have moderate language delay. The risks for such delay are particularly high if the children are from families with low educational attainment by parents, limited economic resources, and a history of coping problems for the parents (Fey & Catts, 1998). We consider a number of Tricky Mix, Transactional initiatives that could promote language progress within the constraints of two or three adults working with 20 to 25 children. We focus first on specific ways of planning Launching and Enhancing conditions. L: Launching Conditions lead to initial engagement with new challenges that must be present for learning to take place. Identifying challenges could be done efficiently with a small staff by following these streamlined steps: quick listing when the child is talkative of the 10 longest sentences; followup with sentence imitation of potential challenges at the syntactic level; a second quick listing

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when the child is talkative of any potential challenges—drop used items from final challenge list; preparation of final syntactic challenge list for planned interactions. E: Enhancing Conditions. Recasts would be planned with challenges from each child's list. Growth recasts are replies to the child that maintain basic meaning, but recast toward a challenging structure. When a child lacks -edpast tense, as in walked, recasts by the teachers would carry the past tense. So, to Dragon walk the teacher could recast to Sure, the dragon walked. To promote convergence of recasting with emotional and social engagement, dragons and other creatures could be part of a puppet show with each child describing some of the action and receiving recasts. Each child in the group could also describe his or her favorite parts of the events to a mystery "guest" puppet who shows up after the main puppet play and asks what has been happening. Again, recasts to each child and individualized jokes, praise, and other social "moves" would be slipped into the ongoing exchanges by the well informed guest (who knows each child's style and each child's target structures). Now, given that kind of planning ahead, imagine the following scene in kindergarten. A language-delayed child, Suzie, has brought a snake in a breadbox. The snake has just laid six eggs, and Suzie is very excited. The kinder­ garten teacher has already determined appropriate language targets for Suzie and three other language-delayed children . She uses this occasion to bring all four together along with two language-normal peers for a discussion. Knowing that not all children will be comfortable handling or getting close to a live snake, the teacher also has handy two totally harmless toy snakes. She initiates a round of play with the snakes, focusing on having the children make the snakes "talk" to each other. At many points, she slips in a growth recast for one of the target language-impaired children. Together with an aide the teacher tries to imple­ ment each of these additional strategies or moves: humor, eliciting comments from different children, further positive emotional responses. After a few moments a "stage" or foundation will be in place, combining children's high motivation, high expectancies, and high positive emotion, on which several different child platform utterances have been placed. Ideal! Now the teacher can selectively recast whichever platform utterance is most easily given a growth recast (carrying a specific challenge to a child) that will also help move the over­ all discourse along in an excited, interesting, and often funny direction. By contrast, imagine this scene, also in a kindergarten class. Robert, a language-delayed child, is attempting to enter a group of other youngsters playing "Power Rangers." This is an exciting and fast-moving game, and the language of the other children involved is quite rich in complexity. Although he is motivated to participate, Robert's communication problems clearly interfere. His poorly formed utterances sometimes bring looks of confusion and dis­ approval from the other children, and they often fail to reply to him. In

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addition, he is dependent upon a number of nonverbal behaviors, such as pulling on people's clothes, to get his point across. Other children clearly find this irritating. They ignore Robert and exclude him from the activity. Over the course of the school year, there is a transactional progression. Robert's attempts to join in become less and less frequent, and the amount of time he spends playing alone, without social or linguistic challenges, increases. As these scenarios demonstrate, transactional dynamics may converge to support fairly persistent convergence patterns combining social, emotional, and linguistic factors. In Suzie's case this convergence of factors led to positive growth. In contrast, Robert's experiences constitute a negative spiral that increasingly reduces his motivation and opportunity to learn new language levels. These cases also illustrate the point that simply providing a stimulating, language-rich environment may not be sufficient to promote language progress, because for each child other tricky mix conditions will need to con­ verge with the language challenges. In Suzie's situation, the factors facilitating social-communicative engagement and motivation were already at work; it was the teacher's skill in weaving the appropriate linguistic challenges into this ongoing context that provided the final ingredients—when they were dynami­ cally integrated—to trigger Suzie's progress in language learning. Table 8.1 illustrates in additional ways how over time these transactional pat­ terns of interaction can build or "spiral" positively toward episodes that are increasingly positive, yet precise in delivering appropriate challenges. The trick­ iness of keeping these spirals going, however, is also indicated in Table 8.1. Here, after just a few steps in a counterproductive direction, transactional dynamics lead to a downward, negative spiral. So, by Time 3, an essentially poor, negative mix has been produced. C H I L D R E N WITH S P E C I F I C LANGUAGE I M P A I R M E N T AT A G E S 6 TO 8 Y E A R S

We first review a program of research showing new ways of mixing conversa­ tional conditions, including emotional conditions, to support learning of language by children with specific language impairment—language delay (SLI) without disabilities in the cognitive, perceptual, or social realms. We then pro­ pose some possible extensions of the Tricky Mix, Rare Event Transactional model to interventions that could jointly support progress by children with SLI in literacy as well as first language. Ways of managing shifts from poor mixes to positive, tricky mixes are addressed. In Nelson, Camarata, Welsh, Butkovsky, and Camarata (1996) seven children with SLI and seven children with normal language were compared on treatments targetting conversational growth recasting and within-subject imitation. The imitative treatment is the didactic treatment described in the following section, and in that procedure the clinician specifically avoided

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T A B L E 8.1

Transactional Shifts Across Occasions in Mixes of Learning Conditions Time i.

An Initial Tricky Mix Challenging recasts selected on basis of tests and language samples. Child responds with positive emotion to dialogue structure with enhancing recasts. Child and teacher form positive expectancies of further positive dialogue. Time 2. An Improved Tricky Mix Child shows partial comprehension or production of language target one. Teacher identifies "hot spot" of active processing of target one, and selectively focuses dialogue toward this hot spot and away from other language targets. Child's initial progress spurs motivation, attention, and further positive ex­ pectancies by both child and teacher. Teacher and child both have increased probability of positive emotion, shared humor, and other positive social adjustments. Child responds to these dynamic mutual events by learning more, and this in turn contributes to a positive spiral of engagement and learning. Time 3. Shift to a Poor Mix Child becomes distracted by activity outside the classroom window. Teacher uses repetitive dialogue to try to re-engage on-task behavior. Child responds with negative emotion and even less on-task engagement. Teacher and child's expectancies of further learning become negative. Child loses interest in activity outside classroom and re-enters dialogue, but pace and quality of dialogue deteriorates.Child's goals & teacher goals in­ creasingly mismatch. Few challenges and little humor are presented to the child.Child stops learn­ ing, and lack of learning contributes further to a negative spiral of low learning, low motivation, and low enjoyment. recasting. Recasting focused on child-specific syntactic targets also, as when a passive target (absent for the child before treatment) was created in an adult re­ cast, as shown in Example (i): (i)

Child: Adult:

Kitty caught the butterfly. Yep, the butterfly was caught by the kitty.

Acquisition of new syntactic targets was more rapid under recasting conditions than didactic-imitation treatment conditions. Result patterns, including the learning rates of the children with SLI, were highly similar to result patterns for their younger language-normal control subjects. Similarly positive results were shown for children with SLI studied by Camarata and Nelson (1992), Camarata, Nelson, and Camarata (1994), and Fey, Cleave, and Long (1997).

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These consistent results for children with SLI present a paradox— children with a strong history of slow language progress are learning under complex interventions at language-normal rates. Tricky Mix transactional theorizing helps in understanding both the prior language delay and the new observations of SLI children learning with high effectiveness. When detailed input and interactions have been analyzed in naturalistic studies, the results have been consistent in indicating— relative to language-normal or language accelerated children—that children with SLI encounter, on average, fewer maternal recasts (e.g., Conti-Ramsden, 1990; Nelson et al., 1995). In related studies, for children with and without language disabilities, accelerated pace of language acquisition goes together with relatively high availability of enhancing recasts (e.g., Cross, Nienhuys, & Kirkman, 1985; Nelson, 1977, 1989, 19913). Tricky Mix analyses emphasize that the recasts associated with relatively high language growth usually bring together multiple relevant learning factors— language challenges, processing enhancers at the level of priming and working memory processes, and positive emotional-social connections between a responsive adult partner and the child learner. Moreover, some of the adjustment-regulation processes were directly measured in the aforementioned treatment work, an undertaking that has usually been neglected in treatment outcome research. More effective treatment was clearly associated with more frequent positive social-emotional engagement by the children (Haley, Camarata, & Nelson, 1994; Newby, 1994). Didactic Imitation-Based Intervention in Relation to Tricky Mixes The primary goal of didactic imitative treatment is the elicitation and reinforcement of targeted language structures, and in this way it is directed upon a relatively narrow slice of Tricky Mix parameters, primarily with an emphasis on attention to and production of the target form in the hopes that it will be internalized. In order to do this, the clinician selects relevant goals and elicits production in a series of programmed steps designed to provide maximum saliency and behavioral support for initial production.This is followed by a systematic fading of these supports and increasing delays and flexibility in reinforcement schedules (and reinforcers) as the child correctly produces the selected target(s). Although this paradigm was developed and adopted several decades ago, elements of this approach continue to be used widely in clinical settings with a variety treatment targets (e.g., focused imitation was a part of the clinician training condition within Fey et al., 1997). Note that this approach has been used with a wide variety of disability typologies, including SLI, developmental delays, autism, and hearing impairments (see the review in Fey, 1986). To initiate a teaching episode, the clinician shows the child a picture or object. In Example (2) (see related examples in Camarata, in press), taken from

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an actual treatment of a child with specific language impairment, assume the target is the auxiliary form of be: (2) Clinician: Child: Clinician: Child: Clinician:

Look, the boy is running. Say 'The boy is running.' Boy running, (incorrect response) No, say 'The boy IS running.' (with added emphasis on the target, no reinforcer is delivered) The boy is running, (correct response) Yes, good! (delivers token reinforcement)

In subsequent sessions, the clinician model and prompt are faded, as shown in Example (3): (3) Clinician: Child: Clinician:

Look at this! (shows picture) The boy is running. Yes, good! (delivers token)

Although this method can be successful with some children and with some language goals (see Camarata, et al., 1994), the relatively narrow focus on very few Tricky Mix parameters can result in mismatches and confusion during learning. In the following sequence, the language target was production of a full propositional complement (e.g., I know who lives in that house). In this game, the clinician models the target and the child provides an answer. Then the child is required to produce the target with new words; this is a generalization phase, illustrated in (4): (4) Clinician: Child: Child: Clinician: Child: Clinician: Child:

I know what lives in the tree. Monkeys! I know who lives in the cat. What? No, I know who lives in the police woman. What? I said that word!

This example suggests that the child was attending to the form without regard to the meaning of the target phrase, and this behavior maybe influenced by the fact that the semantic and contextual aspects of the tricky mix are not included in analog-didactic methods. At this point in acquisition, the child is producing the target correctly from a grammatical standpoint while making mistakes in meaning. We have observed this type of error only within analog-didactic treatments. Obvious questions raised by this kind of error are whether to choose nondidactic, conversational treatments with a better track record so far of generalized, appropriate language gains or whether to take the tack of modifying didactic treatments to bring in more semantic, contextual, and emotional components of tricky mix learning conditions.

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Improving Tricky Mixes in the Direction of Multiple-Purpose Interventions Now we consider how multiple-purpose interactions for 6- to 8-year-old children with specific language impairment might be planned from the Tricky Mix Transactional theoretical perspective to serve progress in several domains of communication. GOALS:

First language syntax advances to Stages IV, V, or V++. Literacy advances to age level (literacy heavily at risk in SLI, see Tomblin et al., 1997). Narrative and discourse skills advance to age level. SETTING: Student/Teacher ratio under ten, with multimedia and teacher support for the communicative goals. LAUNCHING: Tailor dialogue procedures to the profiles of individual children to insure genuine syntactic, literacy, discourse, and narrative challenges. Recasting would be one primary enhancer both in built-in recasts for multimedia texts and in conversational recasting throughout instruction as appropriate by the teacher. Teachers would monitor emotional states and expectancies, and use active strategies below to promote adjustments that would dynamically interact with the rich, child-specific challenges. ADJUSTMENTS: Ideally, during language or literacy or narrative instruc­ tion when the child's arousal drops or rises away from optimal, the teacher can employ some tool that is likely to adjust emotional levels. Such tools can include physical contact, humor, dancing and other movements, and dialogue. Some other tools usually neglected in instructional design might also be considered, such as volume/type of music, lighting levels, colors, and room size and arrangement. Imagine a teaching session in which a teacher is conducting conversational growth recasting—with both syntactic and narrative structure challenges— with a /-year-old language-delayed boy in the corner of a large classroom. This child has no other severe disabilities, but does have a history of poor emotional regulation during some prior teaching sessions with this same teacher. The child on this occasion is initially attentive and comfortable, participating at the highest engagement level so far observed during any activity of the last week. The boy then begins to produce a targeted structure, relative clauses. For example, he says, / want the dog that has the silly hati From a Tricky Mix trans­ actional perspective, motivational and expectancy and emotional adjustment conditions are dynamically working together. Then, in a few short steps, a Poor Mix develops. The boy laughs, claps, and jumps in high excitement. The very toys and conversation that were strongly and appropriately engaged before now become aversive as emotional arousal spins

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up to overarousal and dysregulation. Dynamically, the teacher's recasts and the toys and the entire scene now receive very different interpretations. The boy no longer effectively processes available syntactic and narrative input and no longer plans complex language output. Low expectancy, low motivation for language use and learning, and poor retrieval processes are all working against a success­ ful Tricky Mix. But if interactional and setting tools are quickly and deftly deployed, a few short steps may restore a positive set of dynamics. Lowered lighting, a brief organizing activity, and no demands or expectations from the teacher for language participation for a few moments, and other moves may quickly help adjust the child's emotional and expectancy conditions. Particularly if this kind of adjustment sequence has occurred in similar fashion in past teaching, the boy may shift attention back to the toys or books or multi­ media material and to the teacher as a social and language partner. "Catch-22" properties apply in these recurrent teaching episodes in a child's life—until there have been a few good, swift recoveries from the Tricky-to-Poor Mix transi­ tions, the child and the teacher will not expect rapid recovery. But the more such recoveries happen, the better the expectancies during recovery and the clearer the strategies for both student and teacher, and the easier and easier the recover­ ies become. Positive, dynamic, transactional spirals of events thus build across many weeks and months of interactions. These spirals build the probability that some variant of a successful Tricky Mix will be created during any new teaching episode. These Tricky Mix patterns across learning occasions are seen not only in children's communicative progress, but also in other domains such as mathe­ matics progress by math-delayed children given effective tutoring (Lepper, Woolverton, Mumme, & Gurtner, 1993; Nelson, Perkins, & Lepper, 1998). C H I L D R E N W I T H A U T I S M AT A G E S 8 TO 11 Y E A R S , WITH FIRST L A N G U A G E S K I L L S AT B R O W N ' S STAGES II OR III

Autistic children are usually very challenging. It is difficult to bring either first language or literacy up to age norms, even if intensive intervention has occurred across the full school years between 6 and 18 years. Nevertheless, some children do make moderate progress and perhaps 5% make exceptional gains that bring them to norms (Dawson, 1989; Frith, 1989; Koegel & Koegel, 1995). Here we consider new Mixes that could help support more frequent learning by autistic children in three major communication domains. GOALS:

First language syntax advances to Stages IV, V, or V++. Literacy advances to < i SD below age level. SETTING: Student:Teacher ratio under five, and extensive multimedia teaching support. READINESS: The children considered here have engaged communication sufficiently to reach at least Brown's (1973) Stage II in spoken language, but

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variations in language age/level still will require some accommodations in terms of instruction. Tests of working memory establish no deficits. So these children show some readiness for further communicative progress, but are less ready than most children to connect with new learning challenges and their teachers. NETWORK CONDITIONS: Connectionist modeling of speech and word acquisition suggests that one risk or danger is that a kind of premature closure may occur, so that local minima become locked in and difficult to change in the face of further input (Nakisa & Plunkett, 1998). Autistic children may establish idiosyncratic verbal representations or nonverbal representations that may barely serve social intercourse when conventional verbal representations would be more appropriate and precise. To the extent that this is true, it may be useful to design some components of intervention that are explicit attempts to defeat or weaken highly entrenched but inappropriate representations for syntax, text, and narrative in autistic children. Another tack may be to tailor presentations to take into account certain biases in neural networks for relating motor plans and serial perceptual patterns, such as sentences in text and speech (Rizzolati & Arbib, 1998 ). LAUNCHING: To find some highly engaging challenges, explorations of learning materials should range more widely than with typical learners. For example, for an 8-year-old materials usually used with 4-year-olds and with 12-year-olds might be adapted and tried along with those originally designed for 8-year-olds. Similarly, the degrees of challenge in material should be explored across the full range between less than i stage to more than 3 stages above the child's current level. ADJUSTMENTS: According to some theorizing, autistic children may have physiological deficits that frequently lead to either overarousal or underarousal (Fox, 1994). For autistic children, then, some quite unusual and sensitive adjustment strategies may be required. One consideration is that effective learning by some autistic individuals seems to proceed with unusually flat emotional tone (see Pring et al., 1997). Accordingly, a teacher may profitably experiment with displaying more subtle emotional expressions than would be her natural strategy with nonautistic learners; less strong emotional displays may allow the child to maintain emotional regulation levels that are shown to be supporting engagement and learning. On the other hand, there may be times when more obvious, stronger displays of emotion by the teacher may be the best path to capturing the attention of an off-task autistic child. TRICKY MIXES OF MULTIMEDIA AND HUMAN TUTORS FOR C H I L D R E N WITH A U T I S M

In two separate Swedish studies (Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, & Gillberg, 1995; Tjus, Heimann, & Nelson, 19983), communication gains for a total of 24 children with autism were investigated. The aim was to examine literacy and language

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skills resulting from interactive computer material and supporting teacher strategies. The children's chronological age varied from 5 to 14 years, and their language comprehension age ranged from 259 to 750 or older. The children attended specialized schools for autism or were assisted by teachers in special education. Software

In one study the Alpha program (Nelson & Prinz, 1991) was used for the inter­ vention, which originally was constructed to facilitate English text learning (e.g., Nelson, Prinz, Prinz, & Dalke, 1991) through sentence-creation activity by the child and computer feedback from different modes (voice, animation, video, and sign language). The program was translated into Swedish, and used along with teacher recasting with Swedish children. In the second study the DehaMessages program (Nelson & Heimann, 1995, 1998) was used for training. This software also makes it possible for the child to construct a sentence in text (Swedsh or English) and to receive immediate multichannel feedback (graphic video animations, speech, sign language). A total of 70 words makes it possible to construct almost 200 different sentences. In tests, after the child sees a graphic video-animation sequence, the task is to choose, from a set of alternatives, the sentence that most appropriately communicates the graphic meaning. Tricky Mix combinations of learning conditions were designed into the interventions. Along with the clearcut literacy challenges and parallel supporting representations (text, voice, video animations) actively explored by the autistic child, each child's attention, emotional regulation, and social engagement was supported by a familiar teacher, who helped the child with the multimedia. The teacher also played a role somewhat parallel to the recasting of text meanings on the computer, as she listened to comments by the child and provided recasts in spoken Swedish to these comments. These child-teacher exchanges in Swedish hold the potential to further enhance the meaningful context for learning new text meanings from the multimedia presentations; they also hold the potential to scaffold the child's further acquisition of Swedish skills, which in turn may make learning new Swedish text easier in subsequent lessons. Results

In the first study (Heimann et al., 1995) the children with autism increased both their word reading and phonological awareness. The positive findings for autistic children in the first study were supported and extended in the second study (Tjus et al., 19983). The children increased their observed rates of gain in reading and phonological awareness during training compared to the preinter­ vention period.

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Conclusions A specially developed multimedia program based on the Rare Event Transactional Model that makes use of different interrelated modes (text, voice, and graphics) may promote more rapid gains in reading skills and can be a possible complement to already existing pedagogical methods for some autistic children. This may be especially relevant in combination with emotional support and adjustment from a teacher who also uses recasts targeting seman­ tic and syntactic structures. The response time needed for the built-in tests also showed that the children's processing of text became significantly faster. Network representations may have become consolidated during the multime­ dia presentations, when the children encountered the three representational modes in rapid succession. In two studies we have found gains in literacy skills for children with autism when training with the computer program was combined with a specific teacher strategy. In relation to other groups of children they also show the clearest gains (Tjus et al., 19983). Why is the "package" so effective for these chil­ dren? One explanation may be that they have problems resembling those demonstrated by children with Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD; Barkley, Grodzinsky, & DuPaul, 1992; Hughes, Russell, & Robbins, !994)> such as planning and flexible adaptation to new instructions and changed routines. The opportunity to explore the lessons freely and create the same sentence again and again with immediate feedback allows the children to channel into constructive processing some of the repetitive and perseverative behaviors that can be a problem in the regular learning setting. The immediate feedback may also help children to retain the information they have created in their text explorations, because autistic children often have problems in verbal working memory (Pennington & Ozonoff, 1996). It may also help them to feel that they have "taken control" of the learning situation. Finally, the rules for social interaction, one of the core problems in autism (Dawson, 1989; Frith, 1989; Wing, 1989), become more limited and understandable when working with the computer. Observations of Teacher-Child Interaction The children with autism in the first study and nine children with mixed handicaps were videotaped and observed when working with their teachers during multimedia settings as presented before (Tjus, Heimann, & Nelson, in press). Children with a low language age received more directives from their teachers; and these children more often ignored their teachers, talked less, and stayed more off task than the children with a high language age. These findings suggest that the teachers may have interacted differently (unconsciously or not), depending on each child's language comprehension age. This is in line with

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observations made by Conti-Ramsden (1994), that dialogues with children with various disabilities (as compared with language-normal children) are characterized by a less semantically contingent and more directive speech. Another interesting observation was that the children with a low language level significantly increased their relevant verbal expressions from start to end of training, in contrast to the other group, who showed a stable amount of verbal utterance. However, this increase was not followed by more encouragements from their teachers. Instead, we found the teachers more willing to praise children functioning at a higher language level than the other group at the end of treatment. We may speculate the teachers did not discover and respond to these gains made by the low-functioning children because their relevant expressions at start (28% of the total time observed) and at end (43%) were much lower in comparison with relevant expressions used by the children with a high language age (61% and 71% at start and end of training, respectively). Discussion Finding a productive Tricky Mix of conditions supporting learning by an indi­ vidual autistic child is likely to require more ingenuity and wider exploration of combinations of conditions than teachers of most other children need. But the payoffs of active exploration of conditions can be very high. Koegel and Koegel (1995) reported on a Stage I autistic child who acquired the word sidewalk in just two quick trials, with clear encouragement in the real-world context of examining chalk writing on a sidewalk. But similar children have received well documented long series of teaching trials, in which more than 80,000 presen­ tations of a word have not led to acquisition. Similarly, under new mixes of conditions where challenges and human support are finely attuned to the indi­ vidual learner, autistic learners have shown learning rates that match those of learners with no disabilities, in areas as distinct as artistic communication (Pring et al., 1997) and literacy (Nelson, Heimann, & Tjus, 1997). I N D I V I D U A L S WITH AUTISM AND A S P E R G E R ' S SYNDROME: SURPRISES AND

PUZZLES

Concerning individuals with autism and Asperger's Syndrome (sometimes termed high-functioning autistics) there are still many puzzles about when certain skills will be impossible to learn despite extensive learning opportuni­ ties; at the same time other skills sometimes reach quite surprisingly high levels. What are the particular mixes of conditions that prove ineffective despite teachers most vigorous efforts, as opposed to very powerful, effective Tricky Mixes? For some autistic children it has proven feasible to create learning environments centering on sign language which have revealed excellent learning capacities and communicative progress. Then the progress by these

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children contrasts to their objectively meagre prior progress in spoken language across many years of trying various ways of mixing social and language challenges (Bonvillian & Nelson, 1978). Related cases to consider are those of savants, in which the puzzle is raised concerning whether high skill in an isolated domain could be "mined" so that effective learning conditions could be replicated for other domains. More concretely, if an autistic individual has shown high skill only in music, or drawing, or numerosity estimates, or calendar calculations, are there ways of specifying the mix of learning and performance conditions in the skill island so that the same individual can be treated to a similar mix for important language, social, and cognitive skills that have not developed very extensively? Savant performance of calendar calculation skills, naming the day of the week for January 30, 1900, within a few seconds of hearing that date, for example, might hold clues to possible new avenues of learning in other do­ mains. The opposing possibility, of course, is that such calculations depend on a peculiar and modularized set of representations with no linkages to or clues about learning in other domains. Yet in some reports of how skill has been built up by a child, there are some interesting mixes of learning conditions. Gould (1997) described how an autistic boy chose and engaged the challenge of understanding the ways in which days and dates pattern across years, leading to extensive concrete examination of year after year of calendars. A personalized quest, with very definite challenge, high absorption in the activity, parent emotional support, and repeated rounds of challenge and progress—these constitute a set of learning conditions that fit with our definition of a Tricky Mix. They also approximate the pattern of conditions that have been described as "flow" in many domains (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Similar observations have been made in the area of drawing skill. Savants with very high drawing skill in contrast to strong deficits in language and social and other cognitive skills have in many cases devoted remarkable time and engagement to the activity of drawing and the analysis of drawings in books and other sources. One such autistic child, Stephen Wiltshire, who has been followed since childhood, as an adolescent and young adult created sophisti­ cated drawings that have been showcased in several published books, including Floating Cities (1991). In his case, part of the mix of learning conditions that prove supportive is frequent feedback from others to encourage completion of a drawing, yet with the course of the drawing being determined by himself and with a highly distinctive and appealing artistic style. A test of sorts on the openness of Stephen's learning to new variations on learning conditions occurred when he spent a year at art college. In this context, there were skilled teachers who set clearcut projects for all the students. Stephen responded well to this instruction for the most part, completing the projects and producing art that was qualitatively similar to that of his classmates. Moreover, a close examination of shading and tonal contrast progress was very interesting. Such

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tonal contrasts were absent from his prior work, despite very high sophistica­ tion in linear perspective and the communication of spatial depth. Stephen learned to make tonal contrasts an integrated and powerful tool in his drawings (Pring et al, 1997). Thus we see that his island of skill is not a closed island, but rather that his growth can be facilitated by a mix of conditions that respects his established style and need for frequent social feedback, and that incorporates genuine new challenges and many enhancers for the processing of these challenges. At the same time, in Stephen's case and the case of many other autis­ tic savants, it has been slow work so far to find ways of making other skill domains open up to rapid growth patterns. Stephen's social skills, language level, and narrative level have shown slow growth from early adolescence into the early twenties, but all continue to show serious deficits (Sacks, 1995). C H I L D R E N W I T H S L O W P R O G R E S S BOTH I N LI A N D 12, DESPITE N O R M A L C O G N I T I V E A N D MOTOR A B I L I T I E S

It has not been unusual to find bold arguments that all children receive adequate input for language acquisition (e.g., Chomsky, 1986; Hyams, 1986; Matthews & Demopolous, 1989). Empirical examination of input contradicts this claim and raises interesting questions about which variations in "the input" are supportive of children's language progress (Bohannon, Padgett, Nelson, & Mark, 1996; Nelson, 1989, 19913, i99ib). We have already documented that complex Tricky Mixes of learning conditions, inclusive of, but far from limited to, specific input sentences the child processes, underlie language acquisition. Further, we have presented an empirically supported theoretical framework that relates slow language learning to relatively poor mixes and unusually rapid language learning to unusually rich, supportive mixes of conditions. Here we examine two sets of children who experience patterns of conditions that contribute to a kind of "double" language delay. In Berlin, children in recent research have been observed who receive some opportunities on a daily basis to progress in both Turkish and German. These children live with one to three native Turkish speakers, including at least one parent. They also have many interactions with speakers of the obviously dominant language in Berlin, German. If interactional access to a language guaranteed acquisition, successful bilingual progress could be expected at ages 2 to 6 years. For these children, in contrast to expectation, it appears that both Turkish and German acquisition proceeds very slowly, far behind a normal pace. Accordingly, these and similar children with limited repertoires in both languages have sometimes been labeled "semilingual." More research is needed to fill in details of the children's progress in relation to the learning conditions available to them. But we speculate (cf. Crago, 1998) that there are children throughout the world who are acquiring Li and L2 slowly and similarly show "double specific language impairment." These

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children have intact cognitive and linguistic mechanisms, and, if tested, would score within normal limits on nonverbal intelligence. Prior to developing language delay they had no evident social, emotional, perceptual, or motor disabilities. Thus specific language impairment, SLI, is a fitting label in both languages. Rather than receiving Positive Tricky Mixes, many of these children have a history at i to 6 years of unsupportive mixes. Why and how would this happen? At one level, we should see the children as part of immigrant families adapting to a new culture, with both economic pressures and family fragmen­ tation as factors influencing the learning conditions at home—for example, for Turkish-speaking families in Germany or Sweden. In turn, the dominant culture is biased to provide to immigrants (vs. native children) different kinds of conversational episodes, different attitudes, and different expectancies when the child interacts with German-speaking or Swedish-speaking children and adults outside the home. As a result, compared with monolingual Turkish children in the Turkish culture or German or Swedish children in their native cultures, the immigrant children whose limited progress marks them as semilingual may have experienced all the Poor Conditions in Table 8.1. Across many months or years of language experience, these mixes also move dynamically toward increasingly poor sets of learning conditions. For example, as children fall far behind their peers in language, their expectations of future progress are lowered. Similarly, access to frequent interactions with normally progressing children gradually declines as peers and peers' parents make decisions to limit friendships and activities with the doubly language impaired children. Deaf children constitute a second, related group who often show "double" language delays not explicable by cognitive deficits. Deaf children often face some similarly negative, dynamic transactional patterns over time, when compared with the semilingual children just described. But many of the reasons are different. The profoundly deaf child has limited access to processing a full range of oral language structures and accompanying dialogue facilitators because of the inherent perceptual impairment. In contrast, deaf children at age 2 to 6 years are well prepared in perceptual, motor, and cognitive terms for sign language, but a positive Tricky Mix typically is precluded by null or low sign language repertoires among the child's family and neighborhood conversa­ tional partners. "Semilingualism" very often results, with extremely limited spoken language and sign language skills. When some of these semilingual deaf children attend first and second grade in a school setting rich with fluent signers and an emphasis on sign language progress, there appear to be enough Tricky Mix episodes to trigger considerable Li acquisition in just i to 2 years (Prinz & Strong, 1998; Singleton, Supalla, Litchfield, & Schley, 1998). Similarly, if fluent sign language intervention begins at ages 2 to 3, then within 2 years after inter­ vention onset the mix of conditions is frequently rich enough to support moderate to high sign language skill mastery by the children (Bonvillian & Folven, 1993; Bonvillian, Nelson, & Charrow, 1976; Calderon, Barognes, &

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Sidman, 1998; Greenberg, Calderon, & Kusche, 1984; Moores, 1978; van der Lem &Timmerman, 1995). Positive results in terms of rapid sign language progress by deaf children after a period of very slow progress in any language mode depend not only on the shift to sign language interactions but also on an accompanying mix of positive expectancy, emotional regulation, and facilitative discourse strategies by parents or other partners for the child. Literacy in deaf children who are moderately to highly fluent in sign but not at all fluent in spoken language raises a number of interesting parallels. First, there is the parallel that literacy progress may be very slow or even nonexistent across a stretch of several years, as from about 7 to 10 years. At 10 it is not unusual to find deaf children who have received 4 years of reading and writing instruction but know only a handful of written words, for example, the child's own name, the article the, and the colors red and blue. Second, there is some evidence and considerable discussion in favor of the viewpoint that those children whose literacy learning rapidly accelerates under multimedia-enriched, sign-language based instruc­ tion are the children who have received a fortunate dynamic mix of accompanying social-emotional and strategic support from their literacy teachers (Kuntze, 1998; Nelson, 1998; Nelson, Heimann, & Tjus, 1997; Nelson & Welsh, 1998; Nover, Christensen, & Cheng, 1998). Third, there is the parallel that cognitively intact deaf children who for a period of years struggle along in the very early stages of both sign language as Li and text as Li (written English, Dutch, French, etc.) are semilingual during this period. When new, supportive Tricky Mixes are encountered, the excellent progress made in both languages confirms the hypothesis that cognitive systems and learning capacity (learner readiness) are intact in these deaf children. ART D E V E L O P M E N T IN O R D I N A R Y 2- TO 6 - Y E A R - O L D S

Children's art and painting certainly fits under the topic of "children's commu­ nication." However, for more than 95% of children there is only minimal complexity in their artistic communication, despite some compelling aesthetic impact of certain creations at ages 2 to 6 years. To describe art development from a slightly different angle, there is some moderate consistency between 2 and 6 years in what kinds of shapes, orientations, proportions, designs, and drawing steps (sequences in production) appear early and late (Cox, 1993; Golomb, 1992; Peltzer-Karpf & Zangl, chap. 9, this volume; Pemberton, 1985); even the later productions at 5 to 6 years are simpler than the kinds of struc­ tures used in language at Brown's Stage II. During the same period, of course, language complexity climbs for most children from Stages I and II to the high complexity and remarkable communicative flexibility of Stages V+ or beyond. Many authors have seen young children's artistic limitations as tied to inher­ ent limitations of the young child's mind. We see a different story. Let us

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suppose that at 3 to 6 years the child's mind is fully Ready (learning condition) for producing and responding to complex drawings with perspective, overlap, tonal contrast, texture cues, interacting and interarticulated figures, and—like human languages—an infinite set of communication messages. Unlike languages, however, beyond the readiness of the learner all of the other condi­ tions are very poor indeed. Launching developmental progress through frequent availability of processable challenges is not possible; parents and older siblings, for example, are not fluent in drawing and seldom or never use even their limited skills. To use terms that Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl (chap. 9, this volume) apply to their theoretical account of children's drawing and perception of pictures, the typical input conditions are extremely poor in providing saliency, structural transparencies, and frequency of processable examples. Adjustment conditions are also extremely poor for the child, because others display little personal identification with or enthusiasm for the making of messages in art. Enhancers are lacking, in terms of any supportive strategies for helping the child to observe and process the step-by-step, temporally extended creation of complex drawing. Static images to glance at, a seemingly rich potential input source, especially in some modern cultures with extensive books, magazines, TV, and videos, cannot supply the needed set of interacting learning conditions. With so many conditions at or near zero probability, estimates of effective Tricky Mixes to support significant drawing progress in any month for a typical child must also be very near zero. This stands in stark contrast to typical language acquisition conditions, where across a month's time there will be many occasions rich in positive, interacting factors. From the foregoing theoretical analysis, it becomes easier to understand autistic artistic savants, such as Stephen Wiltshire, highlighted in our brief account earlier. Interesting, complex, skilled, and richly varied art does not depend on a mind advanced beyond the mental levels of 3 to 6 years. Just like language, such complex art depends on the dynamically interacting presence of (a) fully challenging partners fluent in the mode of communication being acquired, and (b) the remaining Launching, Enhancing, Adjustment, Readiness, and Network (LEARN) conditions at the heart of this chapter. From the Rare Events, Tricky Mix perspective, it is no more mysterious that most 3- to 6-year-olds have minimal competence in art than that they have minimal or zero competence in any sign language. This framework implies that when Tricky Mixes of supportive conditions are supplied, children should progress rapidly. This is precisely what the literature shows. For the very few deaf children and the even fewer hearing children who receive truly supportive sign-language learning conditions, sign language acquisition between 2 and 6 years proceeds with the same basic processes and patterns as one sees in acquisition of spoken languages (Bonvillian & Folven, 1993; Bonvillian et al, 1976; Prinz & Prinz, 1981; Wilbur, 1987). The conclusion similarly holds for the rate of gain in artistic skill across 6 to 20 hours of interacting one-to-one, in

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real time, with skilled artists using interactive strategies designed to promote emotional-motivational adjustment and enhanced processing (Nelson & Pemberton, 1998; Pemberton & Nelson, 1987). The same conclusion holds also for case studies of children who have happened to have these same kinds of Tricky Mix art-learning conditions year after year from age 2 to 3 years through later childhood, on the road to professional art work as adults (Golomb, 1995; Ho, 1989; Nelson & Pemberton, 1998). DISCUSSION

We have emphasized at the theoretical level some strong similarities across the domains of children's literacy, art, sign language, mathematical, musical, and first and second spoken language skills. All of these are symbolic domains used for communication and are heavily dependent on cultural scaffolding and transmission. Our theoretical discussion resonates well with a few other discus­ sions of common pattern recognition processes across domains, among them the Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl chapter in this volume (chap. 9) and the dynamic systems writing of Thelen and Smith (1994; Smith & Thelen, 1993) and the connectionist framework provided by Elman et al. (1996). However, in contrast, the vast majority of professional literature to date ignores or explicitly deemphasizes the possibilities of similar learning processes across such structurally distinct domains. By looking at children without disabilities as well as at children with autism, specific language delay, deafness, dyslexia, cerebral palsy, and special-talent savant status, it becomes evident that available mixes of learning conditions vary dramatically across children within each of these groupings. An individual child's learning often can be shown to shift from stalled, extremely slow learning to normative rates or even highly accelerated learning rates when new, highly positive Tricky Mixes of conditions are created. Here we review some of the essential observations for each set of children and then propose speculative ways of creating additional improvements of dynamic, convergent learning conditions. In each case, the Tricky Mixes discussed bring together challenge factors, adjustments of emotion and motivation and self-esteem, highly specific processing enhancers, flexible longterm network representations, and learner readiness. SLI Children Children without cognitive or social-emotional impairments, thus with specific language impairment, were shown to be excellent language learners under certain treatments by parents or therapists. Acquisition rates equaled or surpassed those of language-normal children when well defined, focused syntactic challenges were combined with a discourse style that mixed specific

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processing enhancers (recasts of child utterances) with a responsive, emotion­ ally supporting partner style. Interestingly, for both SLI children and language-normal children of similar language levels, presumably difficult passive structures have proved highly learnable. This has been demonstrated for children at Brown Stages III and IV who received about 20 hours of focused, passive recasting opportunities. The efficient utilization of passive recast challenges, even by 3-year-old children, contrasts with the relatively late naturalistic acquisition of English passives, often stretching into ages 9 to 11 years. But this actually fits with the Tricky Mix framework, because American children typically encounter very poor input conditions for the passive (Baker & Nelson, 1984; Nelson, 1987,1989,19913). Open entirely for future work are much more intensive interventions that would target two critical areas for typical SLI children of about 6 to 9 years of age. First, if high-quality Tricky Mixes could be made available to stimulate first-language skills on a more intensive and extensive schedule, then the very favorable learning rates for SLI children might allow many to achieve normative language status after a year of intervention. Speculatively, 6 to 8 hours of language-specific intervention each week for 50 weeks might be sufficient for many children. Second, these same children are estimated to have a seven-fold increase in risk for reading disabilities compared with children who at age 5 years have no history of language delay (Tomblin et al., 1997). Accordingly, a Tricky Mix approach to the literacy risks would build in supportive reading and writing activities that are adjusted to the initially below-norm first-language skills for these children, and that combine clearcut literacy challenges with multiple refinements of emotional and social adjustment, processing enhancers, and attentional and motivational enhancers. Perhaps, as with the research on multimedia-plus-teacher recasting in text, speech, and animations used with autistic children (also see later), new patterns of intervention could mix literacy and spoken language exchanges into the same episodes of teaching so that identified challenges in both areas would be combined with a positive set of interactional adjustments, processing enhancers, and expectancies of successful learning and communication. In all such efforts, it would be promising to sometimes tailor the speed and complexities of text and speech and other material to the processing profiles of individual children, and again the potential of well designed multimedia would be high in this regard. A related Tricky Mix scenario arises for the subset of children at 6 to 9 years of age with clearcut reading disability but with excellent phonological awareness and processing (Fey & Catts, 1998); for these children, the focus of challenges and the direction of teacher and child strategies need to limit emphasis on phonology and phonics and combine genuine challenges with positive self-esteem, emotional, and motivational factors. Some recent research on the recognition of serial patterns by SLI children indicates that both their visual (text or scribbles) and auditory-verbal (strings of verbal encodings)

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information processing are less efficient than that of language-normal children when presentation rates are rapid (Fazio, 1998). This invites adaptations of speech, text, and animations to some clear assessment of processing rates for individual SLI children. Autistic Children Focused, fairly intensive interventions have been discussed for literacy skills and for first language skill. The good news from the results so far is that autistic (and dyslexic and motor-handicapped children) often learn during focused inter­ ventions as if they were normal children without disabilities. Under the Tricky Mixes present during multimedia-plus-teacher intervention, excellent learning rates were demonstrated. Straightforward projections from these outcomes are, first, that if similar interventions continue, learning at good rates will also continue, and second, that if increased times per month in similar interventions were provided then even stronger communicative progress per month could be expected. These projections deserve to be tested empirically. But what about possible "spin-off" effects, where after an effective inter­ vention period accelerated progress occurs in the absence of any further intervention? For some children observed in the Alpha software and DELTAMessages software projects such spinoff effects were noted in postintervention periods of i to 3 months. That is, learning rates for new literacy skills were high during these post-computer-intervention periods. Within the Tricky Mix framework, positive spinoff effects depend on a changed mix of conditions that have been influenced by what happened during intervention. Among the factors that could be shifted by the positive intervention period are these: (a) The child's expectations of learning are stronger; (b) The expectations of the child's learning are higher for the child's teachers, peers, and parents; (c) New levels of challenge and new materials are arranged for the child; (d) Both teacher and child display new strategies for engaging in communicative situations; (e) Consolidation of highly accessible new presentations of text, spoken language, or sign language during intervention support more rapid and easier processing of new structural language challenges after intervention; and (f) There is a dynamic, positive interaction of all these changes. Children with Clearcut Memory, Attention, and Processing Deficits Multiple observations in this chapter indicate that achieving an effective mix of learning conditions for text or first language learning is quite complex even when a child has demonstrated excellent cognitive skills. For the multimedia project using DeltaMessages software with autistic children, additional observa­ tions have shown that some children with dyslexia or with attentional problems also learn effectively under the teacher-plus-multimedia approach (Nelson et

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al., 1997; Tjus, Heimann, & Nelson, 1998!}). These children's successes demonstrate the possibility of mixing together sufficient enhancers of processing and sufficient motivational and emotional adjustments to create rapid communicative progress even for unlikely learners. A case in point is a Swedish boy entering baseline at 6 years, 5 months of age with a diagnosis of Dysfunction in Attention, Motor and Perception (DAMP). ADHD with Motor and Perception Deficits would be the closest corresponding US category. This boy had a WPIQ of 90 and very severe working memory problems, as evidenced by a raw score of 2 and a scaled score of i on the WISC Digit Span. Compared with normative gains of 8% per month (to achieve in 12 months a full year's progress), his preintervention gains were just 4%. In light of these learner characteristics, it is astonishing that he made a reading gain of 19% per month during the multimedia intervention with funny, flashy animations and one-on-one teacher support during the computer sessions. The Tricky Mix convergence of conditions also included the child's high control of whathappened-when on the computer, a sense of fun, recasts (from both teacher and computer) as enhancers of processing, praise, and encouragement and help in attentional and emotional regulation. These many conjoining conditions might be said to extend the child's memory—in the sense of distributed, extended intelligence (Pea, 1985)—and support high motivation and effective processing and abstraction of new challenges in literacy. Compared with prior sets of learning conditons, the new mixes provided in the multimedia-plus-teacher context may "reboot" the child's engagement and learning. Deaf or Hearing Children with Slow Progress in One or More Modes of Communication We have argued (Nelson & Camarata, 1997; Nelson et al., 1997; Nelson & Welsh, 1998) that children with disabilities should receive parallel communicative interventions. That is, each child should for the same goals have some teaching episodes devoted to one intervention approach and during the same period (e.g., month, semester) receive a contrasting intervention approach. Within this framework, it is worth trying out highly innovative mixes to see if on a head-to-head comparison they result in more motivation, enjoyment, and learning than the current approach that may have been in place for some time. Once any new instructional mix is shown to be a clear improvement, the less effective mix can be dropped and a series of systematic comparisons set up that have the prospect of gradually raising the positive impact of instruction on skills, motivation, expectancy, and self-concept. Art skills could be used in some of this parallel intervention research. It is noteworthy that some autistic children, as reviewed before, become very engaged and very skilled in art as compared with limited literacy and spoken language skills. It is also noteworthy that although hearing children with or

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without language delay have quite limited art skills when literacy is usually introduced at 5 to 7 years of age, when rich, supportive, challenging art inter­ actions are provided, art communication progresses rapidly. Conclusion? As compared with teaching literacy as a separate domain, by mixing in challenging new ways of communicating in art with the challenges of literacy it is likely that some children would experience more fun, motivation, attention, personal relevance, good emotional regulation, self-esteem enhancement, and process­ ing enhancers for literacy, perspective-taking, and general communication skills. This is precisely what Rollins (cited in Paley, 1995) found to be the case for inner-city 12 to 18-year-olds, including many with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. In group work they showed remarkable engagement and productivity, with the analyses of classic texts such as Through the Looking Glass in fresh, highly personal ways that led to elaborate, emotional, and intellectually provocative collages of texts and painting. Further, these students with poor histories of prior learning were able to turn fresh motivation and positive expectancies toward traditional schoolwork, leading to much further educational persistence than their peers. They also were able to produce museum-quality pieces (e.g., Museum of Modern Art, Tate Gallery purchases) through a dynamic process that thoroughly explored and reinterpreted texts (Kafka, Melville, etc.) in relation to art, poverty, racism, negative or positive expectations, history, and cultural relativism. Our point is that when skilled new techniques in art are part of combined literacy/art projects, there are multiple ways in which individual children may find personally relevant and interesting opportunities to communicate powerful messages at their current developmental levels while persistently engaging, enjoying, and mastering new literacy, spoken communication, narrative, and art levels. When such a process goes well, a deaf, language-delayed, autistic, dyslexic, or ordinary child may experience the kind of dynamic transactional pattern across weeks and months that we described as a positive spiral. In such cases, good Tricky Mixes evolve toward truly excellent Tricky Mixes over a period of months. From Poor Mixes and Slow Learning to Excellent Mixes and Rapid Learning Shifts have been observed for a variety of children from very slow learning for years to very rapid learning across a few months of newly organized input and interactional conditions. Specifically, so far we have noted this phenomenon in the areas of drawing, reading and writing, spoken language, mathematics, and calendar calculation skills. Two additional illustrative cases are now considered, one concerning music and the other language. Adam, a third grader, liked to sing along with the radio, but no one had believed that he had any particular musical talent. In fact, Adam's music teacher reported that he had no interest in music during class and was proving a

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behavior problem much of the time. Adam stated that he hated music and thought it was "boring" and "mostly for girls." Then Adam's uncle, recently divorced, moved in with Adam's family. On evenings and weekends, he played both drums and electric guitar in a rock band. Several times weekly the uncle's band converged in the basement of Adam's home to practice. Adam began to attend those jam sessions, which he thought were completely cool. The band members appreciated his enthusiasm. Sometimes they provided him with didactic instruction on a particular instrument. Other times they simply let him "play along" without specific feedback. Within a period of 6 months, Adam moved from being the "music class flunk-out" to a proud junior musician, with a modest level of proficiency with drums, guitar, and electric piano. Earlier in the chapter, we discussed the case of Robert, an SLI kindergartner who had the bad luck to experience a series of negative transactions that exacerbated his language difficulties. Robert's initial attempts to engage in socially and linguistically complex play with kindergarten peers met with failure; his communication problems resulted in rejection by peers and subsequent reduced motivation and opportunity for language learning. However, Robert's teacher ultimately became aware of this negative dynamic and "remixed" the learning conditions. She identified specific linguistic targets for Robert to be presented as conversational recasts during play with peers. Because large-group sociodramatic play was too difficult for Robert to negotiate successfully without help, the teacher also organized a "buddy time" activity as part of Robert's school day. During this time, two compatible peers joined Robert and the classroom aide. The aide provided highly engaging play materials that were unavailable at other times and encouraged the boys to play together with them. When it seemed the social interaction was going well, the aide subtly and strategically introduced the linguistic targets as recasts into the flow of conversation. A number of simultaneous processes occurred across the these sessions. First, Robert deeply engaged the targets woven into the conversational play and his language skills increased. Second, as he experienced social success his confidence and motivation to engage in conversation increased as well. Finally, as his social and language skills improved together and his classmates experienced him as a fun and competent playmate in small group settings, he increasingly was included in spontaneous free-play activities. For both Robert and Adam, characteristics of the individual and characteristics of the environment were initially combining in ways that clearly were nonconducive to learning. In both cases, a negative trajectory was dramatically altered only when a myriad of factors, including attentional engagement, motivation, characteristics of the social environment, and both the nature of specific learning challenges and the way in which they were presented, had been been simultaneously adjusted to better match the readiness

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and style of the individual learner. By constantly affecting one another in a dynamic, transactional fashion, these multiple learning conditions led to change from a negative, downward spiral, to a positive, developmentally facilitative path. Our theoretical account shows some interesting consistencies with other recent theoretical work. In line with the dynamic systems accounts of Fogel (1992), Thelen and Smith (1994; Smith & Thelen, 1993) and Peltzer-Karpf and Zangl (chap. 9, this volume), we argue that when input conditions dynamically co-present salient, transparent challenges with supportive levels of emotional and motivational regulation and specific structural processing enhancers, learning in any domain should proceed rapidly. Shifts from zero or very low availability of such learning conditions to even moderate availability could explain how previously poor learners in a domain "suddenly" are shown to be very competent learners. Further, after a cluster of neurobiological changes around ages 2 to 256 (Elman et al., 1996) the child's brain would appear to be highly prepared for complex structural patterns in any domain; this fits admirably with the facts that when excellent mixes of learning conditions are provided at ages i to 5 in nonconventional domains of expertise for some preschool children, these children achieve high mastery levels, as demonstrated for literacy and sign language and trilingual spoken language acquisition. Parallels are also good with the work on dynamic "flow" conditions by Czikszentmihalyi (1990). The flow perspective emphasizes that children and adults more often experience boredom and lack of learning than excited engagement. The shift from poor to strong engagement depends, according to Czikszentmihalyi, on a dynamic combination of challenges relevant to selfesteem, high salience of the current flow of events, motivational persistence, successful emotional regulation that limits anxiety and recovers from temporary perturbations, and intense focus comparable to the "hot spot" concept in Rare Event, Tricky Mix Transactional Theory. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Empirical and theoretical research underlying this paper were provided by grants to the first author from the National Science Foundation (BNS­ 8013767), NIDCD of the National Institutes of Health (Roi-NS26437, and ROiDCoosoS, and i?5O DCo382-oi 8 98, all also to Stephen Camarata), US Department of Education (Go 083 0295 9, Go 08 43 0079,Go 00830 0361), and Hasbro Children's Foundation. Support to Mikael Heimann came from the Swedish Council of Social Research, Stockhom (90/0090 and 92-0173). Additional support for Stephen Camarata was provided by the Scottish Rite Foundation of Nashville.

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Figure-Ground Segregation in Visual and Linguistic Development A Dynamic Systems Account

A N N E M A R I E P E LTZ E R - K A R P F RENATE ZANCL

Karl-Fmnzens-Universitat Graz, Austria

Visual scene segmentation counts among the essentials of cognitive and lin­ guistic development. The common grounds of visual perception and incipient language become strikingly evident in young children's amazing perceptive and cognitive skills. This shows in the sifting of gestalt principles (e.g., proximity, similarity, continuity) from increasingly complex visual scenes and in the search for coherence in the (linguistic) input. This chapter views early percep­ tual skills, language development and children's reproductions of drawings against the background of gestalt psychology, developmental neurobiology, and the dynamics of pattern formation. Special emphasis is laid on the interplay of neural growth and the extension of focus in the organization of the input. Data from extensive empirical studies with mono- and bilingual children illustrate the dynamics of pattern generation. Samples of children's drawing skills (age range 3;ii-6;6) are matched against linguistic data assessed in long-term spontaneous speech studies and psycholinguistic tests (age range 155-353! 4-10 years). The results show that various systems share common principles and yet display specific evolutionary patterns. Different time scales in the development of cognitive systems suggest a link between brain growth spurts and the dynamics of scene segmentation and pattern formation. THE SCENE

In the decade of the brain, coincidence detection has become a fascinating branch of interdisciplinary neurobiology. Starting off with the investigation of molecular and cellular mechanisms in the search for coherence in the visual system (Altman, 1996; Gray & Singer, 1989; Singer, 1990) the consequences for learning and memory have raised considerable interest in cognitive 197

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neuroscience, too (see Gazzaniga, 1995). Scientifically speaking, the ubiquitous tendency of nature to coordinate things answers to the principles of both evolutionary theory and gestalt psychology alongside with being amenable to the present (high tech) search for coherence. Coincidence detection is undoubtedly of paramount importance in sifting first impressions, but there is much more to the development of natural systems. Given the many-layered activities required in ontogeny, the search for coherence should be considered an initial step giving raise to a nondefinable number of nonlinear dynamic processes. What matters is the self-organization, which creates global from local order (Kelso, 1995, p. 26, argues in a similar vein). The framework of self-organization we draw upon is both selective and dynamic, bringing to mind the caveat of evolutionary biologists that natural selection as viewed by Darwin is a sieve, not a sculptor. In the given context we concentrate on the processes involved in scene segmentation (= selection) and the ensuing dynamics of pattern formation (= sculpturing) in the cognitive domain. Figure-ground segregation will thus be viewed as a precursor to pattern formation in early cognitive development. The data presented are drawn from studies of nonlinguistic spatial understanding, spontaneous speech, and elicited speech production. In order to define the framework of our twofold study on pattern recogni­ tion and problem solving in the visual and linguistic domains we first brief the self organization of brain and behavior. THE SELF ORGANIZATION OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR

It is a widely accepted, empirically well-founded theory that the creation and evolution of patterned behavior at all levels is governed by the processes of self organization (see Karpf, 1990; Kelso, 1995; Prigogine, 1979; Thelen & Smith, 1994, for details). Current research in neuroscience turns upon the assumption that maturational factors and experience play complementary roles in forming specialized systems, which display different degrees of experience-dependent modification and operate on different time scales. Due to the spiral of recipro­ cal interaction between the neural system and the environment, a relatively small set of genetic rules suffices to generate highly differentiated structures (see Cowan, Zipurski, & Jessel, 1997; Gazzaniga, 1995; Jones, i993;Rakic & Singer, 1988). Different time scales in the development of cognitive systems (as ascertained by extensive studies, Neville, 1995; Peltzer-Karpf, 1994; Zangl, 1998) suggest a link between brain growth spurts and the dynamics of scene segmentation and pattern formation. Brain growth spurts, to prepare the ground for the discussion of scene segmentation, are determined by brain activity, head growth/brain weight, and the establishment of neural connections. In the given

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context we discard prenatal development (see Brown, Hopkins, & Keynes, i99i;Rakic, 1995) to make room for the dramatic changes around 24 months that accelerate the pace for the intake of information and trigger pattern generation. Of particular relevance for the ontogeny of cognition and language are data on the course of postnatal synaptogenesis, glucose metabolism, myelinization, and the growth of long-range nerve fibres. The peak of synaptic density is reached by age 2. This overshoot phase of synapses and neurotransmitter receptors (De Schonen, Deruelle, Mancini, & Pascalis, 1996; Huttenlocher, 1994) is followed by a decrease of synaptic density which shows regional differences (up to 11 years 40% are pruned). Metabolism takes a similar developmental course; the glucose values of 2- to 3-year-old children exceed adult values and remain at these levels until about 8 to 10 years (Chugani, 1994). Myelinization comes in installments (i.e., visual, 2 to 4 months; haptic, 12 months; auditory, 4 years; and continues in different cortical areas up to the age of 20. Scene segmentation, and in particular ferretting out gestalt principles, is markedly influenced by fiber maturation (Burkhalter, Bernardo, & Charles, 1993). Long-range, horizontal intracortical fibers that connect neural struc­ tures are still immature at age 2. Given their preference for similar orientations, their presence and activity are, however, essential in extracting figures from the background. As recent research has shown, their developmental pattern seems to match the development of preferences for texture-defined stimuli that are crucial in visual, cognitive, and linguistic development (for details on feature binding see Sireteanu, 1998). This takes us to the dynamic interplay of brain and environment. Four prin­ ciples provide the framework for our investigation (see Karpf, 1990, 1993; Zangl, 1998). They are: 1. Living systems interact selectively with the environment. 2. The selection of data from the environment is carried out on the basis of the presently available criteria, that is, the respective system determines and enlarges the basis for the further selection and organization of information. 3. Data selection-coincidence detection eventually leads to the organization of nonlinear dynamic systems. The processes active in these changes are selforganizing and irreversible. Irreversible processes lead not only to increasing complexity, but also to successive dissociations/modularity. 4. The organization of nonlinear dynamic systems shows degrees of persistent order. The (abridged) chaotic itinerary reads as follows: (a) The initial state (comprising prespeech behavior) is dominated by the search for coherence; linguistic behavior shows memorized (nonanalyzed) chunks; (b) The intermediate stages are characterized by the reorganization into different clusters involving overproductivity and fluctuations; (c) The final state shows coherent clusters and uniform patterns, with large internal coupling strength and a great stability toward unordered input.

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In this chapter we demonstrate the extent to which genetic endowment along with the interplay of neural development and the environment determine the possibilities and limits within which systems organize themselves and emerge. The empirical part will of the chapter shows how the arrow of time and negative entropy create order on the micro- and macro-level (see Haken & Stadler, 1990). SCENE SEGMENTATION

The following subsections provide insight into the neuroscientific activities alluded to in the introduction. They are indispensable to understanding why children prefer some configurations over others in their early perceptive and cognitive activities. Or, put in the jargon of gestalt psychology, we try to show why good forms are of paramount importance in human information processing. The Search for Coherence Current concepts in the neurobiology of vision assume that object perception requires the segmentation of visual scenes and the segregation of figures from the ground. It is hypothesized that a primary step involves the local extraction of specific features of an object. Subsequently, to permit the identification of the object, these local features have to be evaluated for coherencies which can be used as a segregation criterion. For this purpose a variety of cues can be employed. The principal criteria for grouping are the contiguity of contours and the coherence of elements in particular feature domains (with coherent features forming the figure[s], and the incoherent the background). For some objects it is their characteristic color, texture, or motion on the basis of which they are recognized. In most cases, however, shape will have to do the job. Fig. 9.1 provides an example for shape recognition against a multifacet background. In the course of recognition, the visual system analyzes object shapes and compares them with shape representations stored in memory; that is, form recognition implies the existence of stored neural representations of previously encountered forms and a mechanism that matches the neural representations of the current form (in Fig. 9.1 a Dalmatian dog) with the stored representa­ tions (for a detailed discussion see Johnson, Hsiao, & Twombly, 1995, p. 253). We may assume that the iteration of segmentation and regrouping operations could allow for the generation of the abstract representation of complex shapes and patterns. This brings us to the hallmark of cognitive systems: combinator­ ial complexity due to the superposition of systems. The following section shows that the coupling between distributed cell groups is dynamic and can change in a stimulus-dependent way. How stimulus configuration relates to the gestalt principles of good form, closure, continuity, similarity, and proximity is discussed later on.

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FIG. 9.1. 1970).

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Scene segmentation: dalmatian (= figure) in a park (= ground; Gregory,

Correlated Activity The prime condition for the formation of patterns is the teamwork of nerve cells, more technically termed assembly coding. This operating principle of cortical activity can be explained as follows: Complex feature constellations consist of large assemblies of spatially distributed, selectively interacting cell groups. Neurons participating in a particular assembly are distinguished by the synchrony (on a msec time scale) of their responses (for details on temporal coding see Singer & Gray, 1995; von der Malsburg 1987; on phase locking and binding mechanisms, see Kelso, 1995; p. 250). With regard to the self-organization of systems it is important to note that this dynamic coupling of simultaneously active cells is stimulus induced; the response synchronization between simultaneously activated cell groups depends not only on the feature preference of the respective assemblies, but also on the stimulus configuration present in the input. A figure is thus generated either by the coherent activation/grouping of individual detectors with similar orientation preferences, or by the orientation contrast along the borders of the figure (see Rieth & Sireteanu, 1994). The permanence of this otherwise ephemeral interplay of neuronal preferences and feature constellations depends, however, on certain conditions. Here we need to refer to another well-known principle in the organization of neuronal networks—the weakening or strengthening of connections that answers to the following rules: Connections between cell groups that are often active simultaneously are strengthened, whereas interactions between cell groups that are only rarely coactive are weakened. We give the ideal conditions

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in italics to emphasize their role in the self-organization of cognitive systems: Saliency, frequency, and repeated occurrence in a comparable configuration facilitate the stabilization of neuronal contacts (this list is primeordial in the design of multimedia facilitation of communication skills in children with and without disabilities; see Nelson, Heiman, & Tjus, 1997). The general guidelines for this neuronal give and take, however, are determined by the coupling and interaction of perceptual, motor, emotional, social, and cognitive-linguistic systems (see Haken & Stadler, 1990; Kruse & Stadler, 1994; Thelen & Smith, 1994). Crowded Figures To perceive scenes correctly, we must determine which adjacent and which partially occluded contours and surfaces belong to which objects. Problems arise when the scene contains more than one coherent figure or when the back­ ground itself has some coherent properties. Before we embark on an extended discussion of developmental matters, we briefly turn to the intricacies of scenes with many embedded patterns. The isolation of any one object from another can well be illustrated with the Rubin vase (see Fig. 9.2). It shows reversible figures, in which each of a given pair of adjacent or even interconnecting figures can be seen as either figure or ground. It is, however, impossible to see both sets of objects simultaneously; we can only switch back and forth rapidly. Ambiguous figures have often proved a valuable test case for the assessment of cognitive development. With regard to the different time scales in the development of systems, it is particularly inter­ esting to pay attention to children's analysis of crowded figures in the visual and linguistic domains. Rock, Gopnik, and Hall (1994) carried out a series of tests in order to find out whether young children (N = 25) reverse ambiguous figures. The stimuli used were Rubin's vase/faces figure, Jastrow's duck/rabbit figure, and Bugelski and Alampay's rat/man figure. The results in a nutshell: Up to the age of 3 to 4 years children never reversed a figure when uninformed; only some did when informed. In the case of linguistic ambiguity, superposition proper comes to the fore. We shall concentrate on syntactic ambiguity, which involves variations in the alternate allocation of roles to the individual parts of a sentence, such as in the following examples: Biting cats can be dangerous for dogs. After sunrise the chicken was ready to eat.A transversal study of children (Karpf, 1990) from 6 to 10 years (N = 40 in each group) showed that children do not cope with linguistic ambiguity until age 7 (only 17% reversed a figure when informed). Scene segmentation is an early perceptual process; that is, humans begin at an early age to develop knowledge of objects and their behavior. The following sections deal with the infant's question-answer interaction with the environ­ ment in the visual and linguistic domains.

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FIG. 9.2. Rubin's vase/faces figure, Jastrow's rabbit figure, Bugelski and Alampay'sampay's rat/man figure. PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT

Pattern processing in infancy means organizing an array of overlapping signals, contrasts, and contours. This involves the extraction of phonetic features, the discovery of word boundaries, and the extraction of grammatical regularities. Recent studies have shown that 8-month-old infants are capable of extracting statistical regularities with little effort from only 2 minutes of spoken input (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). One of the ontogenetic primes for this enterprise is the orienting reflex demonstrated in the visual as well as in the acoustic field (with novel and discrepant stimuli generally leading to exploratory behavior). In view of the self-organizing processes delineated in the previous sections we argue that ontogeny is determined by innate mechanisms and by mechanisms acquired through experience, which provide criteria for deciding whether a particular constellation of visual features or dynamic acoustic elements (online processing) is likely to constitute a figure (a process slowed down with sensory-impaired children; for psychophysical evidence see Sireteanu, 1999; for therapeutic consequences Nelson et ah, 1997). The following sections deal with three aspects of children's learning to structure space for language and to map language onto conceptual notions. Apart from incipient form perception and input segmentation we (true to our interdisciplinary approach) focus on the early graphic reproduction of propor­ tions, size, shape, and orientation in space (the data presented in the empirical part will justify this cross modal extravaganza). Scene Segmentation in Early Visual Development Recent studies suggest that vision in young infants differs in a very fundamen­ tal respect from adult vision. Explorations in the adult visual world are governed by the saliency of visual features, which "pop-out" from the background and act as attractors for eye and head movements. After this visual

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grasping, attentive visual analysis can be performed on the foveated visual objects (Sireteanu, 1999). Infants do not show the preference for discrepant objects that is characteristic of adult vision. This preference emerges somewhere between 2 months and 3 years of age; at the earliest stages, visual orienting seems to be governed by other factors, like contour density, local brightness, or local shape (for more details and references see Vital-Durand, Atkinson, & Braddick, 1996). Each of these attributes has its own pace of development, presumably because of the different neural substrates for the various visual functions. Crucial for the formation of spatial concepts is the development of binocular vision which rests on the interrelation between visual and oculomotor processes. Texture segregation based on line orientation develops late in childhood; that is, the preference for a figure defined by differ­ ences in line orientation emerges at the end of the first year of life and becomes adultlike by school age (Rieth & Sireteanu, 1994). How do these findings relate to language? So far we have presented evidence gained from the visual domain. In order to give a full account of language development we now deal with crossmodal processes. We set the scene (in the very sense of the word) by raising a few issues: Infants are natural categorizers; they detect similarities between different auditory events, relate speech infor­ mation presented by eye to that presented by ear and match the productions of others with productions of their own. Input Selection in Early Language Development Within the framework of self-organization, input analyses require a dynamic perspective which suggests that the child attaches different weights to different system components at different times, depending on the respective biological and cognitive-linguistic a priori (for visual perception see Slater, 1996; for auditory perception see Goodman & Nusbaum, 1994; Morgan & Demuth, 1996). Throughout the first year of life, when the basic guidelines for language acquisition are set, three major shifts giving evidence of important reorganiza­ tional processes have been traced. First, infants seem to move from sensitivity to psychoacoustic categories to phonological ones. Second, the ability to perceive phonetic contrasts is narrowed down to those of the native language. And third, there is a shift from perceiving supragsegmental properities of prosody to segmental ones (Hirsh-Pasek, Tucker, & Golinkoff, 1996; Mehler & Christophe, 1995). The actual onset of language comprehension and production skills is dependent on various capacities: Incoming stimuli need to be discriminated, segmented, categorized, stored, retrieved, and continuously matched/compared against new material (for the dynamic form:function interplay see Peters & Stromquist, 1996; Slobin, 1985). The discovery of rules und units involves several processes which percolate the following stages: (a) figure-ground segregation, (b) the segmentation of the

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input in groups, (c) the extraction of features, and (d) the discovery of rules. Similar to visual development, figure-ground segregation is the basic process for the extraction of units and the discovery of patterns, which requires the extracted material to be segmented into smaller linguistic units, searched for coherent figures, and classified into categories. Extractions of early units from the speech stream show considerable variations in length, depending on the typological characteristics the child is exposed to, the quantity and quality of the input (for the role of child-directed speech see Gallaway & Richards, 1994) and individual differences (see Bates, Dale, & Thai, 1995). Infants and children are attentive, selective listeners. They seem to have a strong sensitivity to order and regularity on various levels, which is crucial for detecting distributional properties in the input and for working out new form:function mappings (see Hirsh-Pasek et al., 1996; Nelson, 1991). Furthermore, they do not pick out everything they hear said to or around them but pay particular attention to salient, frequent, and transparent stimuli. Saliency: More Salient Before Less Salient Functors

Saliency can refer to visual, semantic, and phonological criteria, all of which direct the child's attention to which sorts of information to notice first (Peters & Stromquist, 1996). Concerning visual saliency, some objects are visually more salient than others because of their color, size, and shape and are thus foregrounded (Sireteanu, 1999). With regard to semantic saliency, utterances with clearly identifiable meaning are given priority (Gleitman & Landau, 1994; Slobin, 1985). As for phonological saliency, children possess a high sensitivity toward certain rhythmical and intonational aspects and stress patterns (Kuhl, 19 87; for the use of filler syllables see Cutler, 1996; Peters &Menn, 1993). Stress is a particularly important perceptual determinant in the acquisition of both the lexicon and morphological devices. It helps to locate word boundaries as well as to work out word-internal relations (Cutler, 1996; Gerken, 1996). Generally, children prefer fixed stress patterns (word-initial or word-final) and stressed syllables to their unstressed counterparts, with only 4-month-old infants being able to discriminate contrasts in bisyllabic words (Goodsitt, Morgan, & Kuhl, 1993). In production, younger children tend to reduce multisyllable targets; the stressed syllables are maintained and the unstressed ones are often eliminated (see Weir, 1962). Furthermore, exaggerated stress patterns facilitate infants' discrimination of embedded contrasts, leading us to assume that different input patterns may exert an influence on rule extraction and pattern formation. Mehler, Dupoux, Nazzi, and Dehaene-Lambertz (1996) provided evidence that infants possess a high sensitivity towards the discrimination of stimuli varying in numbers of vowels and languages differing in rhythmic structure. Moreover, syntactic

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constituents that are usually fused in adult speech (such as pronominal subjects and verbs or question words and copula in English; verb and pronoun in German) are often clearly separated in child-directed speech. Finally, it is suggested that less segmental variability of tokens correlates with greater suprasegmental variability. New words often tend to be introduced in especially salient places, such as in utterance-final position, where they are usually loud, lengthened, and high pitched (Morgan & Demuth, 1996). Frequency: More Frequent Before Less Frequent

Items occurring more frequently in the environment should stimulate extraction, further storage, and pattern recognition. Peters and Stromquist (1996) argued that repetitions and expansions in the input facilitate segmentation. Research has shown that in the initial stages of both first- (see Snow, 1995; Zangl, 1998) and second-language learning (Peltzer-Karpf & Zangl, 1998), the input is characterized by a higher proportion of repetitions and expansions compared to more advanced stages. Transparency: More Transparent Before Less Transparent

The acquisition of morphosyntactic categories is highly dependent on se­ mantic and morphotactic transparency. Constructions with an intact boundary between stem and affix are easier to acquire than items where morphonological rules interfere. In general, additive processes without base modification are easier and acquired earlier than processes involving internal changes (Clark, i993;Karpf, 1990; Peltzer-Karpf & Zangl, 1998). These parameters cleary show that the infant is able to apply sophisticated perceptual strategies which enable him or her to discriminate various incoming stimuli and to first sift out the most salient candidates for pattern formation. Finally, it has to be stated that age- and domain-related changes in input analysis require certain reorganizational processes in language learning (Bowerman, 1982; Karpf, 1990; Zangl, 1998). Development of Drawing As with all natural systems the (re)production of drawings shows a very specific trajectory path which is determined by perceptual, motor, and cognitive development. The evolution of drawing starts with scribbles that are rather motoric than figurative in nature (12 to 18 months). This stage of gestural representation is followed by a more fortuitous realism, which is characterized by a better motor control and the preference of closed circular forms (18 to 30 months). By age 3 children become aware of the representational potential of drawings (i.e., they express internal models and become increasingly lavish with

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ornamental details). The expression of spatial relations and the dynamic representation of figures is not to be expected until age 5. It goes without saying that here again we are faced with a wide range of individual variation (for details see Cox, 1993; Krampen, 1991; Maffei & Fiorentini, 1997, pp. 143-165; Mecacci, 1995, pp. 12-28,37~39)Because part of our investigation turns on the reproduction of geometrical forms, we now take a closer look at these issues. First, the reproduction of drawings develops along similar lines with first reproductions turning out grossly circular, being then replaced by closed forms with curves and angles, and only later by forms showing further differentiation into circles, ellipses, squares, rectangles, and triangles. Here again different perspectives and three-dimensional objects pose the greatest problems. Age 3 is a turning point in the similarity of children's reproductions with the original; perspective and proportion, however, are still missing. The stage of intellectual realism (4 to 8 years) is heralded by the distinction between round and angular forms; topological relations are completely acquired during this stage. From 8 years onwards visual realism comes to the fore. Drawings now unite perspective, proportion, and distance. In short, accuracy as to shape, size, arrangement, and orientation have to come a long way (for early assessments see Luquet, 1912; Piaget & Inhelder, 1948). Although the evolution of drawing seems to parallel spatial development, a caveat has to be added against using them as mirror images of incipient spatial concepts, in the sense that children's drawings are unlikely to be a direct reflec­ tion of how they understand reality. Production problems are bound to intervene, ranging from simple motor-skill limitations to relatively high-level graphic planning problems (for the emergence of spatial working memory, see lohnson, 1997). Earler sections of this chapter have shown that cognitive systems become increasingly interactive over the course of development. This interaction requires a certain uniformity of principles, which nature amply provides (see Gould, 1993 for an amusing account). In the first part of this chapter we con­ centrated on neurobiology. The second half follows two tracks: Coincidence de­ tection is viewed against the background of gestalt psychology (an approach of long standing); that is, we trace the search for coherence and the impact of gestalt principles (plus the ensuing dynamics of pattern formation) in two different and yet related domains. The following section is a sidestep to the history of science, with the additional aim of polishing up the theoretical section.

CESTALT P R I N C I P L E S

The hallmark of gestalt psychology is the assumption that the world does not come to our brains as a chaos but rather in gestalts, that is, as a world of orga­ nized forms, a world of objects (Koffka, 1935; Kohler, 1947; Wertheimer, 1923).

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This is very much in contrast to the behaviorist view of the world as an ensem­ ble of undifferentiated sensations, but that is another story. These organized forms or gestalts are characterized by their oversummativity, meaning the whole is more than just the addition of its parts, and the constancy of the configuration (gestalts can be transposed without affecting the overall quality). What is crucial in this context is the hypothesis of gestalt psychologists that the phenomenolog­ ical structures of perception correspond to the neurophysiological excitatory processes in the (human) cortex. We are faced here with the first hint at the isomorphism of perceptual processes and brain activity which, as we have already tried to show, has by now become a hotbed of interdisciplinary research. Progress in neuroscience has triggered a renewed interest in gestalt theory. In fact, the gestaltists of the first half of the century experience a neurophysiologi­ cally based interpretation of their principles (Roelfsema, Engel, Konig, & Singer, 1997). These principles have multiplied over the ages, at times attaining the hardly manageable repertoire of 114 gestalt laws, of which nine are commonly quoted in the literature. For our purposes five should do, because we are going to trace them in different domains. The winners are: good form, clo­ sure, continuity, similarity, and proximity; additional information is provided in the appropriate sections that follow. Here it suffices to say that the good or pure forms described by von Ehrenfels (1890) prevail over other perceptual guidelines to grouping sensory data. This preference starts very early in life; during the first 6 months infants develop sensitivity not only to configurations and patterns, but also to regularity and symmetry, and to good form in a gestalt sense (Mehler & Dupoux, 1994). Before we embark on the presentation of our empirical evidence we should like to provide an example related to gestalt perception in language (see Fig. 9.1 which requires figure-ground segregation in the visual domain). Here the gestalt law of similarity leads to perceiving nonneighboring letters as belonging together: ThlsIsVeRyHaRdToReAdlsNtlt? The example shows that gestalt laws may also lead to a pattern hampering recognition. Having set the theoretical scene, we now concentrate on empirical evidence. First, a brief outline is given of the collection of the data. Second, the search for coherence and gestalt principles is traced in figure-drawing and language ac­ quisition.

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Input Selection and Pattern Reproduction in Figure Drawing The data are part of a large-scale study (Friehs, 1997) carried out in a local kindergarten. They derive from 13 normally developing children as well as one child who suffered from 60% impaired sight on one eye due to grey cataract at birth. Three of the eight girls and six boys aged 3511 to 6;6 years were bilingual

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(Chinese-German; English-German; Croatian-German). The test was carried out individually and consisted of: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)

models the children were asked to copy; pairs of patterns upon whose identity they had to decide; series of drawings to complete; picking out two identical elements of 5 to 8 similar looking ones; detecting given sections of a picture; and classifying objects ("Put the things together that belong together").

Input Selection and Pattern Formation in Language Development The sample includes both examples from first and second language learning (Peltzer-Karpf & Zangl, 1998; Zangl 1998). The data were elicited individually and derived from different sources. First-language acquisition: 1. Longitudinal studies (from 155 until 3:0) of mono- (German) and bilingual (English-German) children, who were visited on a regular basis in their homes. Complete transliterations of the children's and parents' or investigator's speech and interaction are coded in a computerized database (CHAT scheme from CHILDES project; MacWhinney, 1991).' 2. Psycholinguistic tests and a pragmalinguistic investigation carried out with 40 children between 4 and 7 in local kindergartens.2 Second language acquisition: Psycholinguistic testing of 96 children, age io,3 starting off from their first en­ counter with the second language at age 6 and lasting until the end of primary school at age 10, and a video-based pragmalinguistic analysis

PATTERN RECOGNITION AND REPRODUCTION

Research on perceptual development has shown that children do not experience their environment as a "buzzing, blooming confusion" (Moerk, !977> P- 60). Yet, children will not pick out everything they see or hear around them, a behavior influenced by the interplay of feature preference and configu­ ration with the given neural repertoire. In the following actions we provide a hierarchy of feature extraction and reproduction. 1

The data were collected in the course of a FWF project P 10 250 -SPR.

2 The data were collected in the course of a project funded by the Austrian National Bank, Julilaumsfondsprojekt Nr. 4222. 3 The data were collected in the course of a longitudinal study, Four years of Vienna Bilingual Schooling, funded by the Austrian Ministry of Education.

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A Developmental Sequence of Form Perception Some researchers try to draw a line marking the onset of certain achievements; yet what is much more important is an understanding of the developmental se­ quence rather than the attribution of some achievement to one particular age. Previous research together with case studies of children 3511 to 6;6 suggest the following order concerning what children pay attention to when perceiving and, later, reproducing forms. There is, however, still a need to confirm the re­ sults with further studies. Salient Features. Sireteanu (1999) has presented evidence that 4-month-old infants process a compound pattern sequentially, proceeding from the most to the least salient features. In Fig. 9.3 the salient elements as, for instance, the rabbit's eyes are attended to much earlier than less salient ones, such as its whiskers. Individual Shapes. Perception and especially reproduction of shapes very much depend on their complexity (i.e., their transparency, as well as their fre­ quency of occurrence). Thus, circles are easily reproduced by 3 to 4 years, whereas triangles usually only appear at around age 5 and sometimes cannot even be reproduced by 6 years (see Fig. 9.4). Perception of these three shapes precedes reproduction by many years (Mehler & Dupoux, 1994). In the example shown in Fig. 9.5 the children had to finish the drawings on the right according to the figure given on the left. It clearly demonstrates that they regard to external features (the sail) before internal ones (the circular port­ hole). Configuration. In 4-day-olds we already find sensitivity to overall configu­ ration, not yet, however, to position in space (Mehler & Dupoux, 1994). Krampen (1991) also stressed that perception of the overall form precedes that of position in space: "After form is mastered, the transition from form to direc­ tion must be learned, especially in writing, where reversals in direction tend to persist" (p. 224). Size. Size seems to become an important factor between ages 2 and 3. At that age we find little and big figures, the little ones being referred to as the children and the big ones as the parents. The more important an object or person to the child, the bigger it will be drawn. It is, however, only at around age 4 to 6 that children start to reproduce very close copies as far as size is concerned. Spatial Position. Spatial analysis requires the analysis of shape and spatial relations among shapes (Ullman, 1995, p. 346). Bertenthal (1993) showed that 3-month-olds could discriminate between upright and inverted moving walkers, but not between upright and inverted static displays. Children also

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FIG . 9.3

Philipp, 558.

FIG . 9.4

Emanuel, 553.

FIG. 9.5

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Kerstin, 4;9.

recognize very early the wrong position of figures and objects that they are used to, such as animals, houses, or trees. In our study we asked children to find some given sections in a picture. Children from about 456 started looking in the "right" places (i.e., in the sky to find the moon, etc.). Concerning reproduction, sensitivity to direction can be found quite early for simple patterns. The order proposed does not seem to change, no matter how complex the figure; however, children might, for example, respond to size in simple patterns before responding to shape in more complex ones.

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Perception in most cases precedes production by far. We illustrate our findings with the examples in Figs. 9.6 through 9.10.

FIG . 9.6. "before")

Tamara, 3;n. Salient features > configuration (">" will be used to indicate

FIG. 9.7.

Sylvana, 4;o. Salient features > shape > configuration > size

FIG. 9.8. Katharina, 5:7 and Markus, 5:9. Salient features > configuration

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FIG. 9.9.

FIG. 9.10.

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Tamara, 3511. Shape > configuration > size

Amelia, 6;6. Shape > orientation.

Our case studies show that in only 30% of the examples involving differing orientation this was indicated by 3- to 5-year-olds, whereas the figures that differed in size were discovered in 93% of the cases. Even with 5- to 7-year-olds there are still considerable differences (sensitivity toward direction, 74.5% ver­ sus to shape, 100%). For copying simple geometric forms this hierarchy holds, yet for more complex tasks it might not be appropriate. In other domains different factors might be of importance. In this case it might be safer to use the following sequence: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi) (vii) (viii) (ix) (x) (xi)

important > less important simple and short > long and complex little > much salient > less salient concrete > abstract elements > combinations regular forms > irregular forms form with great possible use > forms with limited use external > internal form > spatial position crude > detailed

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According to our hypotheses, children who master two languages should also do better on drawings due to greater agility. Yet, two of the three bilingual children had definitely not yet mastered the basics of German, and this very probably influenced their drawing skills. Two of them had problems "drawing in one go." The third (age 6;6) had still problems with left-right distinction; that is, when asked to copy she often produced mirror images of the models. In general, however, the children's drawings roughly corresponded to the draw­ ings by the other children in their age range. The boy who suffers from 6 o % impaired sight in one eye only managed to attend to salient features, and individual shapes of our hierarchy; he failed to show regard for configuration, size, or spatial position. He reproduced three dots arranged as a triangle as shown in Fig. 9.11.

FIG. 9.11

Hannes, age 457. Shape > configuration.

Impaired sight, thus, as might have been hypothesized, has a tremendous influence on perceptual and reproductive (drawing) skills. Pattern Formation in Early Language Development Pattern recognition and formation require the interaction of various chronologically ordered states which are universal and permit enormous individual variation. What is particulary important for the establishment of systems are the children's/learners' preferences in the selection of input data. In addition to pragmatic and emotional-affective factors, frequency, saliency, and transparency affected their choices. The more strongly these parameters inter­ act, the earlier the structure is likely to be acquired. The interaction in Example (i) shows that events of high emotional value, such as Oliver's first visit to the pub at age 157, can stimulate productive capacities: (i)

MOT: was habtsn [: habt ihr denri] heute getrunken # der Papa und du? 'What did you drink today - Papa and you?'

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CHi: Olilo Bier'Olilo beer' MOT: (...) der Olilo hat Bier (ge)trunk(e)n 'Oliver drank some beer' CHi: Papa Bier 'Papa beer'

How input selection and extraction of elements of the incoming speech stream are guided by the above-mentioned principles is now illustrated by some examples. Input Selection In order to most efficiently follow the child's communicative development both representations in phonology, morphosyntax, semantics/lexicon, and pragmatics as well as emotional and social/intersubjective rules have to be taken into consideration (see Fletcher & McWhinney, 1995; Nelson, 1991). Language acquisition requires the infant or child to make use of his or her emotional, social, biological, and cognitive-linguistic resources, which brings about different selective engagement and foci (with structure-specific dynamic entering of hot spot status) at different ages (cf. Nelson's REL-model, 1991). Frequency. Data of the very early stages of first language acquisition confirm the validity of our assumption that more frequent, recurrent structures are given priority over rare occurrences. The chunks shown in Examples 2-5 were extracted and integrated in the initial stage of speech production (155 to 157) by monolingual German-speaking children: (2) was is'n [: ist denn] das?'what's [: is] that?' The unit was first used as a whole and later split up into its components i(s)n das?'is that' or das?'that' using rising in­ tonation to mark the question. (3) da di da + xx 'that is + xx' (xx = first proper nouns such as Papa, Mama; later common nouns such as Tis(ch), Ball etc. The new words filled into the "slot" are readily segmentable via clustering because they are embedded in known frames. (4)gemma [: gehen wir] papa 'let's go' (5) da is/isse + xx 'there is/there is a + xx' (xx = nouns such as in da isseBall, da isse Sonne, etc.)

Input selection for the bilingual child is more complex than for monolinguals because it has to be carried out in both languages. Again our data reveal the preference for frequent chunks, which function as starting points. These unanalyzed units are first used as whole prefabricated speech patterns and are only later segmented into their subunits (thus passing from the global to the local; cf. Kelso, 1995). Some of the most often used chunks are (a) German das is + noun/adjective such as in das is Ball/(h)ei&; English 'that's [: is] + noun/adjective';

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(b) English what's [: is] e matter? or reduced to the final element matter? (pronounced with rising intonation); (c) oh + xx (xx = noun such as in oh button, oh booh, derived from input, "Oh look a button;" oh was accepted as a kind of "personal article"); (d) Leave it (= TV) on!, Stop it!, Let me! (high frequency of imperatives); (e) don't know why!; (f) xx + ise + colour such as in airp(t)ane ise g(f)een, b(r)ella iseg(r)een (xx = noun in sg. or pi.).

Saliency. Our data clearly show that children prefer stressed and utterance, final elements which are first integrated into their speech. New lexemes are often introduced in utterance-final position with lengthened vowels. The preference for stressed elements is further proved by the reduction of multisyllable targets where only stressed syllables are maintained. Additionally, reductions result from unstable articulatory programs and phonological systems. Consequently, with increasing age, articulatory precision increases, and phonologically reduced forms decrease. There are, however, numerous examples of multisyllable reductions in the very early stages. Although the extraction and selection of salient elements constitute the fundamental mechanisms of the acquisition process, they only function as the organizing points in establishing the system(s). In the following stages, the extracted material has to be explored and exploited for regularities (= coherent figures) and recurring patterns, which subsequently have to be generalized and productively applied to new items. Pattern recognition underlies highly dynamic principles, which can be seen from two different angles: within the whole system as well as within the processes active in the subsystems (i.e., on the macro- and microlevels). Pattern Formation

For the discovery and formation of patterns the following gestalt principles are of particular relevance and are given more detailed consideration: good form, continuity, similarity, and proximity. Good Form. Good forms can be defined as "regular and symmetrical patterns," which are favored in perceptual analyses. How can this principle be applied to language? Is it valid for language acquisition as well? With reference to language, the principle suggests that children/learners favor stable and un­ modified forms. The detection of good forms rests upon the concept of perceptual shape stability/constancy, which seems to be accessible at a very early age—well before language comprehension and production set in. The prefer­ ence of good forms holds both true for the sentence and the word level.

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T A B L E 9-1

Reduction of Multisyllabic Words

Target:

Monolingual Produced Form

Mikrofon 'microphone' Hallo Renate Banane "banana' Schokolade 'chocolate' Salat 'salad' vergessen 'forgotten' gegessen 'eaten' Kassette 'cassette' Kaffee 'coffee' Computer 'computer'

fon hallo Nate nane lade lat gessen gessen sette fee puter

Target

Bilingual Produced Form

balloons hello Renate banana umbrella beginning

loons hello Nate nana b(r)ella ginnin

forgotten cassette telephone tomatoes

gotten sette tephone matoes

At the beginning of the acquisition process stable forms such as frequent nouns and imperatives as well as deictic (e.g. da 'there') terms and regular verb forms (such as progessive -ing) are extracted. Stable frames (= unmodified copied wholes), which are only gradually filled with semantically and morphosyntactically adequate slots, also give evidence for the preference of good forms in the early stages, as shown in (6) through (8): (6) this isse + xx; this isse ball/owange [: orange]/f(l)ower (7) da is + xx; da is es!, da is erl, da is meine Puzzle; 'there is + xx; there is it/he!, there is my puzzle' (8) there's [: is] a + xx; there's a ticken [chicken]/t(r)ain/boy/bunny (r)abbit

Further evidence for the preference of good forms is provided by the children's/learners' strategies of creating new words (cf. Clark, 1993). In the early stages of both Li and Lz language learning children prefer processes in which the base form does not change. To communicate about particular actions, they take up the option of coining new verbs from the object noun of the action being talked about. Examples of denominal verbs are shown in (9) and (10): (9) puzzlen 'puzzling/making a puzzle; stiffen 'pencilling/drawing with a pencil' staubzuckern 'castor sugaring/putting castor sugar on something' (monolingual 2;8 t03;o) (10) blocking (playing with the blocks), sanding (playing with the sand) (bilingual 2;8)

Reliance on good forms also predicts that children/learners should favor compounding instead of derivation. There are numerous examples of first- and

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second-language learning that clearly demonstrate that compounding, where the constituent elements stay unchanged, is used before affixation. Some of these are shown in (11) and (12). (11) First-language acquisition (351 to 6): Tanzfrau 'dancing lady' > Ta.nze.rin 'dancer'; Singfrau 'singing lady' > Sangerin 'singer'; Fleischmann 'meat man' > Fleischer 'butcher'; Postmann 'postman', Briefmann 'letter man', Tragermann 'carrier man' > Brieftrager'post man' (Zangl, 1998) (12) Second-language acquisition (6 to 8 years): bake man, cook man, cooking man > baker; artman, paint man, painting man, paint boy, paints man > painter; bus man, bus person > bus driver; hair machine > hair dryer (Peltzer-Karpf & Zangl, 1998)

With children's increased age and linguistic competence, however, derivation gains in productivity. Thus, with development we find a change in pattern preference moving from simpler, more transparent to more complex, less trans­ parent options, which again proves the dynamics of language and the shift of focus. Good forms also predominate in the early stages of syntactic processing. This is shown by the preference for or dominance of canonical sentence schemes. Children/learners avoid dislocating elements but rather adhere to fixed ordering patterns. Structures that require the movement of sentence constituents such as interrogatives, embedded structures, or negations are acquired later than simple, active S-V-O sequences. Continuity. Continiuty is the tendency to perceive smoothly flowing or continuous forms rather than disrupted or discontinuous ones. The relevance of continuity within a linguistic framework can be exemplified by the acquisi­ tion of active and passive structures. In both English and German, actives are acquired before passives because they adhere to the productive, canonical sentence structure. Passives, on the other hand, are produced by (a) moving the object noun phrase into subject position, (b) morphological adaptation (past participle), and (c) the insertion of the by-phrase and the auxiliary. Thus, it demands great morphosyntactic flexibility, which is absent in early development. Crosslinguistic age differences in the emergence and productive application of passives are due to input differences as well as typological factors (see Grain, 1993). Our data show that in both sentence imitation and comprehension, first- and second-language learners score higher in actives than in passives. In imitation morphological violations and omission of functors predominate in early development, whereas in comprehension misinterpretations result from overapplying the first-noun-as-agent strategy. Thus, passives are initially treated as though they were active declaratives, apparently ignoring the elements that signal the existence of a different kind of sentence structure

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(seeFraser, Bellugi, & Brown, 1963; Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek 1995; Zangl, 1998). This clearly shows the preference of continuous over discontinuous forms. It has to be added, however, that the first-noun-as-agent strategy is usually only restricted to reversible passives, in which both noun phrases are equally likely to assume either subject or object position; it consequently depends on event probability. With increasing linguistic and cognitive flexibility, children become less dependent on semantic cues and can rely exclusively on mor­ phosyntax for the interpretation of passives. We also found that children are able to imitate and even comprehend actives and passives earlier than to judge the equivalence of the structures. Similarity. The grouping of elements on the basis of similar features is a fundamental process in language acquisition. The continuously increasing information load enables the child to compare word or sentence constituents, which have to be searched for similarities and subsequently systematically classified into categories (Slobin, 1985). In establishing word classes and rule systems, distributional factors and co-occurrencies have to be paid attention to. Having extracted common features, these can then be applied to new forms. As the learner's rule system is usually less restrictive than that of the mature speaker rules are sometimes overapplied (= overgeneralized), which leads to more or less chaotic interim stages. The examples in (13) and (14) illustrate overgeneralizations in first- and second-language acquisition. (13) Plural Li German Preference of s-Plural: Kases [Kase-Kase] 'cheeses,' Eiers [Ei-Eier] 'eggs,' Hawsers [Haws-Hawser] 'houses,' Vogels [Vogel-Vogel] 'birds' (2;o/2;i) Preference of n-Plural: Biern [Bier-Biere], Vogeln [Vogel-Vogel] 'birds,' Koffern [Koffer-Koffer] er] 'suitcases,' Apfeln [Apfel-Apfel] 'apples' (2;6-3;o); avoidance of vowel alternation Redundant marking: Schuhen [Schuh-Schuhe] 'shoes,' Gansen [Gans-Ga'nse] 'geeses,' Schafe [Schaf-Schafe]e] 'sheeps,' Kaktusse [Kaktus-Kakteeri] 'cactusses' (in more advanced stages; 356-6;o); suffix + vowel alternation Li English all coffees, all teas (256) L2 English sheeps, mouses, gooses, childs/childrens

A closer look at the strategies used for encoding the plural shows a shift in pattern preference with increasing age moving from external (= suffixation) to internal marking (vowel alternation; cf. Karmiloff-Smith, 1993).

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(14) Past participle Li German Overgeneralization of weak forms (255 to 350) die Zahne haben die Zungegebeiflt [gebissen] 'the teeth have bited the tongue' der Michael hatgsinget[gesungen] 'Michael has singed' der Basi hat meine Spielsachen geschmeisen [geschmisseri]; - die Legosteinen - der s(ch)limme Basi'Rasi has throwed my toys' und i [: ich] hab gspielt und i [: ich] hab ein Tor geschieflen [geschossen] 'and I played and I have shooted a goal'

These examples clearly demonstrate that children have established their own rule systems, which enables them to actively apply rules. New words are not modeled on idiosyncratic or infrequent patterns but are treated according to frequent and transparent patterns. Similarity not only includes analogies and generalization of patterns, but also refers to the decoding of formifunction relations. The learner must recognize that one function (e.g., plural) can be encoded by different formal means (e.g., suffixation, conversion, suppletion/vowel alternation), which are usually acquired hierarchically: from more frequent, transparent options to less frequent and opaque ones. Proximity. Proximity can be defined as the tendency to regard objects that are close to each other as forming a group. The validity of this principle within a linguistic perspective becomes evident in the interpretation of causative structures. The decoding of causative structures often requires a modification of the N-V-N sequence and therefore needs careful morphosyntactic analysis. In Chomskyan terms, the direction of c-command relations has to be worked out. Causative structures are acquired late in development, with problems occurring until age 10 (C. Chomsky, 1969; Karpf, 1990; Zangl, 1998). The sentences included in our psycholinguistic test (The bear permits the sheep to stroke the rabbit/The bear promises the sheep to stroke the rabbity are often interpreted as being equivalent in early stages. The learner does not differentiate between subject and object control but assigns the noun phrase closer to the object (= the rabbit) the agent role. This is in accordance with the MD (= minimal distance} principle, which is violated in subject control. Thus, object control should be easier to acquire and therefore precede subject control (N. Chomsky, 1981). This assumption is only partially verified by our data (Zangl, 1998). A further domain of investigating the linguistic relevance of proximity is the positioning of verbs in subordinate clauses. After this extended excursion into linguistic field research, we now turn from the local, system-specific presentation to a global discussion.

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C O N C L U S I O N S : NATUR E is NOT ECONOMICAL OF STRUCTURES—ONLY OF P R I N C I P L E S

Taking account of global development, or in this particular case, relating drawing skills to cognitive growth, is a time-honored (though temporarily forgotten) custom of child psychology (see Barnes, 1893; Biihler, 1918; Gallagher, 1897; Luquet, 1912; Piaget, 1922; Stern, 1914). We have tried to link up children's early cognitive, linguistic, and graphic development with gestalt psychology and developmental neurobiology, the latter because we feel that a discussion of early cognition neglecting neural development would leave out useful information. We have argued that the development of cognition depends on the functional capacity of the underlying neural circuitry, or more precisely, the complexity of patterns processed at a given age is determined by species-specific brain growth spurts and the input provided by the environment. Of particular interest in this context are ERP studies relating to intermodal integration in early childhood. As Neville (1995) reported, infants show less specificity and more redundancy of connections between the auditory and visual cortices. Responses to auditory stimuli result in extended waves over the spectrum, which become more and more minute between 6 and 36 months. This specification of neural processing might correlate with the eventual segmentation of the holistic scene representa­ tion and the gross contours favored in early childhood, which brings us back to the synopsis of our own crossdisciplinary study. In the opening sections we stated the elementary concepts of and conditions for self-organization and argued that, from a dynamic point of view, mere coincidence detection will not respond to the demands of natural systems. True to our credo, we then embarked on mapping the principles of (visual) scene segmentation onto early drawing skills and the segmentation of the linguistic input, with the ensuing processes of pattern formation, the mainstay of argu­ mentation being the uniformity of principles ruling natural systems. Crossdisciplinary research requires abstraction, viz the search for pivots. For the visual aspect of the present study, space turned out to be crucial for various reasons: It is one of the functions of the primary visual cortex to evaluate relationships between spatially distributed features of a pattern. Grouping and distinguishing among spatial relations also comes to the fore in children's reproductions of drawings. Infants are sensitive to arrangement and motion; productive use of spatial relations can be observed around 18 months along with an increasing sensitivity to language-specific aspects of semantic spatial organization. Recent crosslinguistic findings suggest that spatial semantic development seems to involve pervasive interactions between nonlinguistic spatial understanding and the semantic structure of the input language (Bowerman, 1996).

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Our side- (or back-) step to gestalt psychology has proved quite fruitful (further ideas concerning the dynamic treatment of the legacy of the gestaltists can be found in Epstein, 1988; Kelso, 1995, p. 187.). We have traced the emergence of gestalt principles in three domains and ascertained the following developmental sequence: saliency > individual shapes > configuration > size > spatial position. Notwithstanding their shared principles, the individual systems clearly show specific evolutionary patterns. As for language, it has been shown that children adhere to specific gestalt principles at different times, gradually moving from less complex to more complex stimuli. Frequent, transparent, and salient input signals function as "organizing points" on both the word and sentence level. Thus, at the beginning a clear preference is to be found for good forms (= stable, unmodified ones), phonologically and or positionally salient elements, and continuous schemes. The more strongly these components interact, the more easily and rapidly nat­ ural classes are constructed. Opaque, less regular, and less salient specimens are integrated with developing knowledge. This finally leads to a grater mor­ phosyntactic mobility, enabling the learner to move from local to global organization (= rule allocation over distant constituents). "Old" strategies are changed or reorganized and adapted to best fit the new system conditions and the differing input focus. As Nelson et al. (1997) so aptly pointed out, these processes should be viewed against the background of emotional and arousal regulation factors, to pay justice to the dynamics of communication. This brings us to the question how scene segmentation and the dynamics of system development relate. Our data suggest that scene segmentation involves activities engendering developmental processes in various subsystems eventually affecting the overall dynamics of a system. Evidence from various angles of developmental neurobiology make it very likely that the scope of scene segmentation widens dramatically with the synaptic proliferation, the metabolic burst, and the growth of long-range nerve fibers at about age 2 (Bates et al. 1992; Johnson, 1997). This heyday of neural development brings about a subsequent series of phase shifts in linguistic-cognitive and communicative development, shown in lexical spurts, the onset of grammar, and increased interactional capac­ ity (what REL theory and its associated tricky mix perspective can do for the fa­ cilitation of communication skills is described in Nelson et al., 1997). Generally speaking, pattern formation in language has shown that continuously advancing cognitive and linguistic competence leads to differing input weights along the developmental trajectory. This clearly proves that pattern formation is a highly dynamic process, in which children attach different weights to different aspects of the (sub)systems during development, with each form showing its own evolutionary pattern (differing in the speed of development, in the intensity and time of phase shifts). In neural terms input selection depends not only on the feature preference of the brain, but also, to a crucial extent, on stimulus configuration. In fact, our

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early developmental data abound with salient, frequent, and regular configura­ tions. In short, children clearly favor the good form as a base camp for further (cognitive) expeditions. Developmental psycholinguistics has experienced some dramatic changes in recent years. Influx from neuroscience has bolstered up the description of system development with information about neural growth, self-organized pattern formation (including the preferences of input selection), and nonlinear dynamics. As an initial step we have tried to show that a dynamic perspective linked with developmental neurobiology opens up entirely new ways of looking at and investigating the making of language, cognition, and communication. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Author Index

A

Abbeduto, L, 97,117 Abelson, R. P., 152,160 Acre-Arenales, M., 50, 51, 56,66

Acredolo, C., 97,118 Adamson, L., 141,160 Agresti.A., 79,91 Aguado, G, 4, 5,22 Aguirre, C., 29, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47

Akhtar, N., xviii, xix, 52,66

Aksu, A., 6, 7,22, 91

Allen, S., 54, 66

Altman, J., 197, 223, 226

Antelmi, D., 4, 6,19, 20, 22

Anula, R. A., 31, 47

Arbib, M. A., 176,195 Arnberg, L., 29, 47

Aslin, R. N., 159,160, 203, 226

Atkinson, J., 204, 226

Axelrod, M., 50, 51, 56,66

B

Bach, E., 75,91 Badia, A., 8, 23

Badzinski, D. M., 97,118 Bahrick, L. £.,159,161 Bakeman, R., 141,16 o Baker, E., 97,119 Baker, N.D., 186,192 Barkley, R. A., 178,192 Barnardo, K. L., 223

Barnes, E., 221, 223

Barognes, J. Y., 182,192 Baron-Cohen, S., 73, 91

Barrena, A., 20, 23,28, 32, 33,47 Barrera, L., 4,21, 23

Bassano, D., 4, 23, 97, 98,116,117

Bates, E., 11,23,141,160,185,191,192, 205,222, 223

Beilin, H., 97,117 Bellugi, U., 219,224 Bergman, C. R., 27,47 Berman, R., xviii, xix, 49, 54, 55, 65, 66

Bernardo, K. L., 19 9

Bertenthal, I. B., 210,223 Berthoud-Papandropoulou, L, 97, 98,

116,117 Blake, R., 76,92 Bloom, C., 140,160 Bloom, L., 2, 3, 4, 5,6,7,19, 20, 21,22, 23,52,67 Bloom, P., 73, 92

Bohannon, J. N., 181,192 Bonvillian, J. D., 180,182,184,192 Bowerman, M., xviii, xix, 2, 4, 23, 49,

53, 54, 64, 65, 66, 206, 221,223

Boyd, J., 96,117 Braddick, O., 204, 226

Braine, M., 52, 66

Braunwald, S., 161

Bretherton, I., 141,160 Brooks, P. J., 6, 21,22,25, 51, 67

Brown, M. C., 199,223 Brown, R., 2, 6,23,129,131,137,175, 192,219,224 Bryant, D., 97,119 Buckwalter, P., 186,195 Budwig, N., 49, 52,54, 56,57, 58, 59,

64, 65, 66

Buhler, K.,221, 223

Buhler, M., 176,179,181,195 Burkhalter, A., 199,223

227

228

AUTHOR INDEX

Butkovsky, L, 170,194 Bybee, J., 70, 92

Byrnes, J. P., 97,117

c Cairns, H., 2,23 Calderon, R., 182,183,192,193 Camarata, S., 165,170,171,172,173, 188,192,193,194 Camarata, M., 170,171,173,192,194 Cantor, J., 97,118 Capdevila, M., 8, 21,24 Carello, C., 143,161 Caron, J., 100,118 Carstairs-McCarthy, A., xiii, xix, 123,

124,125,126,127,130,136,137 Castro, E, 4,19,20,24 Catts, H., 16 8,18 6,192

Champaud, C., 4, 23, 97, 98,116,117

Charles, V., 199,223 Charrow, V. R., 182,184,192 Cheng, L. L., 183,194 Chiasson, L, 97,119 Chipman, H., 4, 23

Chomsky, C., 6, 23,220, 223

Chomsky, N., 181,192, 220, 223

Christensen, P., 183,194 Christophe, A., 204,225 Chugani, H. T., 199,223 Chung, S., 70, 71, 92

Clancy, P., 2,3, 4, 6, 7,19, 22, 23

Clark, E. V., xiii, xix, 4,19, 20, 21, 23, 51,

54, 66, 67,123,136,137,206, 217,

223

Cleave, P., 171,172,193 Clemente, R., 3,4,5,23 Coates, J., 96,97, 98,116,117 Cole, M., 147,162 Conti-Ramsden, G., 158,161,172,179, 192

Corbett, G., 125,137 Cortes, M., 27, 48

Cowan, M. W., 198,223 Cox, M., 183,192, 207,223 Crago, M., 54, 66,181,192 Grain, S., 218,224

Croft, W., 51,67 Cross, T., 172,192 Csikszentmihalyi, I., 180,192 Csikszentmihalyi, M., 180,191,192 Culicover, P. W, 140,163 Culioli.A., 96,117 Cutler, A., 205, 224

D Dale, P., 3,19, 23, 205, 222, 223

Dalke, D., 177,194 D'Amasio, A., 167,192 Darrault, L, 96,117 David, J., 96,117 Davidge,J.,97,119 Dawson, G., 175,178,192 Day, C., 99,100,104,112,117,118 De Houwer, A. xviii, xix, 28, 47

De Schonen, S. C., 199, 224

Dehaene-Lambertz, G., 205, 225

Demopolous, W., 181,193 Demuth, K., 54, 67,133,134,136,137, 204,206,22 5

Denhiere, G., no, 120

Dent-Read, C., 160,161 Deruelle, C., 199,224 deVilliers, J., xvi, xix, 4, 23,74, 80, 91,

92

deVilliers, P. A., xvi, xix, 4, 23, 74, 80,

91,92 Dixon, R. M. W., 29,47 Dixon,W.J., 161

Doke, C. M., 126,137 Duncan, K. R., 142,147,163 Dunham, P. J., 140,162 Dunn, J., 167,195 DuPaul,G.,i78,i92 Dupoux, E., 205, 208,210, 225

E

Edwards, C. P., 145,163 Edwards, D., 147,161 Ehrenfels, C., 208, 224

Eisenberg, S., 2, 23

Elman, J. L, 185,191,192

AUTHOR I NDEX

Emde, R. N., 167,195 Engel.A.K., 208,226 Epstein, W., 222, 224 Erneling, C. E., 141,161 Eruelle, C., 224 Estes, D., 97,120 Ezeizabarrena, M. J., 32, 35, 47 F

Fabricius, W. V., 97, 98,116,118,120 Fazio, B., 187,192 Ferko.K.R., 146,163 Fernandez, A., 19, 23,75, 92 Fernandez, B., 31, 47 Fernandez, L. M., 31, 47 Fernandez Ordonez, I., 44,47 Ferreiro, E., 4, 6, 21,23 Fey, M., 168,171,172,186,192,193 Fiess, K., 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,19,21, 22,23 Fillmore, L. W., 167,193 Fiorentini, A., 207, 225 Fitzpatrick, P., 143,162 Fletcher, P., 215, 224 Fodor, J. D.,72, 92 Fogel, A., 191,193 Folven, R., 182,184,192 Fox, B., 50, 51, 56,66, 67 Fox, N. A., 176,193 Fraca, L, 4, 21,23 Francois, J., no, 118,120 Eraser, C., 219,224 Friehs.S., 208, 224 Frith, U., 73, 91,175,178,193 Fuchs, C., 96,118 Furrow, D., 97,119 G

Gallagher, M., 221,224 Gallaway, C., 205, 224 Gallo, P.,75, 92 Garcia-Soto, X. R., 4, 23 Garfinkel, H., 142,161 Gartner, B., 2, 3, 5, 7, 20, 23 Gazzaniga, M. S., 198, 224 Gee, J., 57, 67

229

Gegeo, D., 145,162 Gerken, L., 205,224 Gibson, J. J., 139,142,143,146,161 Gili-Gaya, S., 6, 23 Gillberg, C., 176,177,193 Givon, T., 51, 67 Gleitman, L., xv, xix, 205, 224 Godlonton, M., 135,137 Gogate, L. J., 159,161 Goldfield, E., 159,161 Golinkoff, R. M., 204,205,219, 224 Golomb, C., 183,185,193 Goncu, A., 145,162 Goodman, J. C., 204,224 Goodman, L., 79, 92 Goodsitt, J., 205, 224 Goodwin, C., 141,142,161 Gopnik, A., 202, 226 Gottsleben, R.,19,25 Gould, S. J., 180,193,207, 224 Grant, J., 141,161 Gray, C. M., 197, 201, 224, 226 Greenberg, C., 97,120 Greenberg, M. T., 97,119,183,193 Greenfield, P., 7, 23,161,163 Griffin, P., 147,162 Grodzinsky, G., 178,192 Groefsema, M., 96,118 Guitart, J.,82, 92 Guo, J.,97,118 Gurtner, J. L., 175,193 H

Hadkinson, B. A., 97,120 Hadley, P., 167,195 Hafitz, J., 2, 3, 5,7, 20, 23 Haken, H., 200, 202,224 Haley, K., 172,193 Hall, S., 202, 226 Harris, R. J.,97,118 Harris, S., 141,161 Heimann, M., 165,172,176,177,178, 179> 183,188,193,194,195, 202, 203,222,225 Hermelin, B., 176,179,181,195

23O

AUTHOR

INDEX

Hernandez Pina, F., 4, 5,19,24, 29, 44,

45,46,47,75,80,92 Hewitt, L., 73,74, 92

Hickmann, M., 97, 98,116,117,118 Hirsh-Pasek, K., 204, 205, 219, 224

Hirst, W, 72, 92, 97, 98,99,118

Ho, W.-C., 185,193 Hoban, E., xvi, xix

Hoffner, C., 97,118 Hood, L., 2,3, 4, 5, 6,7,19, 21, 22,23 Hopkins, W. G., 19 9, 223

Hopper, P., 50, 67

Horobin, K., 97,118 Hsiao, S. S., 200,224 Hughes, C., 178,193 Huttenlocher, P. R., 199,224 Hyams, N. M., 181,193

Keynes, R. J., 199,223 Kilcher, H., 97, 98,116,117,118 Kim, Y., 3,24 Kirkman, M., 172,192 Kleiber, G., 96,117 Koegel,L.,i75,i79,i93 Koegel,R.,i75,i79,i93 Koffka, K., 207,225 Kohler, W., 207,225 Konig, P., 208, 226

Krampen, M., 207,210, 225

Krashen, S., 158,161 Kronning, H., 96,118 Kruse, P.,202, 225

Kruskal, W.,79, 92

Kuhl, P., 205,224, 225

Kuntze, M., 183,193 Kusche, C., 183,193

I

Inhelder, B., 207,226 loup, G., 72, 92

J

Jackendoff, R., 90, 92

Jacobsen,T., 2, 3,4,6,7,19,22,23 Jeremy, R. J., 2,5,2 4

Jessel, T. M., 198,223 Johnson, C. N., 97,113,118,120 Johnson, K. O., 200,207, 224

Johnson, M. H., 59, 67,185,191,192, 222,224 Johnston, J., 74, 92

Jones, D., 141,161 Jones, S., 198,224 Jouen, R, 97,119 Jubicek, L. R, 167,195 K

Karmiloff-Smith, A., 6,24,185,191, 192,219,224 Karpf, A., 198,199,202,206, 220, 224,

225

Keller, H., 158,159,161 Kelso, S. J. A., 198,201,215,222,225 Kemmer, S., 50,67

L

Lahey, M., 2,3, 4, 5, 6,7,19,20, 21,22, 23

Lakoff, R., 51, 59,67 Landa, A., 45, 47

Landau, B., 205,224 Larreya, P., 96,119 Lees, R. B., 20,24 Legros, S., 97,98,119 Lehalle, H., 97,119 Lepper, M., 175,193,194 Leslie, A., 73, 91

Levy, Y., 123,129,136,137 Liebman, S., 28, 48

Lieven, E., 2, 6, 20, 24

Lifter, K., 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7,19, 21,22, 23

Limber, J., 2,3,19,20,21,24 Lindholm, K., 28, 47

Litchfield, S., 182,195 Locke, J., 73, 74, 92

Long, S., 171,172,193 Lopez Ornat, S., 7,24,29,44,45,46, 47,75,8o,92 Lucy, J. A., 109,119 Luquet, G. H., 207,221,225 Lust, B., 2,6,24 Lynch, M., 142,161 Lyons, J., 96,119

AUTHOR INDEX

M

Macbeth, D., 142,161 MacNamara, J., 97,119 MacWhinney, B., 10,24,56,67,209, 215,224,225 Maffei, L, 207, 225 Mahlau.A., 28, 29,47, 48 Major, D., 97,119 Malsburg, C. von der, 201,225 Mancini, J., 199,224 Mandler, J. M., 113,119 Maratos, M., 82, 83, 84, 89, 91, 92, 97, 118 Mariscal.S., 75,92 Mark, M., 181,192 Markman, E. M., 141,161 Martin, R., 96,119 Martinich, A. P., 71, 92 Marvin, R. S., 97,119 Matthews, R. J., 181,193 McCabe, A., 4, 5, 6,7,24 McNeill, D., 141,156,161 Mecacci, L, 207, 225 Mehler, J., 204,205, 208,210,225 Meisel, J., xviii, xix, 28,33,35,48 Menn, L, 205,225 Mercer, N., 147,161 Mervis, C., 2,6, 24 Messer, D. J., 141,161 Michaels, C. E, 143,161 Millikan, R., 141,161 Miscione, J. I., 97,119 Mistry, J., 145,162 Mitchell, P., 75,93 Moerk, E, 209,225 Moerman, M, 142,161 Moore, C., 97,119,140,162 Moores, D. E, 183,193 Morgan, J. L., 204, 205, 206, 224, 225 Mosier, C., 145,162 Mumme, D. L, 175,193

N Naharro, M. A., 76, 92 Nakisa, R. C., 176,193 Nazzi, T., 205,225

23!

Neisser, U., 143,162 Nelson, K., 140,141,162,167,195 Nelson, K. E., 157,158,162,165,167, 170,171,172,173,175,176,177,178, 179,180,181,182,183,184,185,186, 187,188,192,193,194,195,202, 203,205,215,222,225 Neville, H. J., 198, 221,225 Newby.K., 172,194 Newman, D., 147,162 Newport, E. L., 203, 226 Nienhuys, T. G., 172,192 Nover, S.M.,i83,i94 Noyes, C. R., 97, 98,116,120 Nusbaum, H. C., 204,224

O O'Brien, M., 186,195 O'Brien, R., 97,119 Ochs, E., 145,162 Oksaar, E., 28,48 Oleron, P., 97,98,119 Olguin.R., 52,67 Olson, C. E., 97,119 Ortiz de Urbina, J., 30,48 Othenin-Girard, C., 4, 23 Overton, W. E, 97,117 Ozonoff, S., 167,178,195 P

Padgett, R.J., 181,192 Padilla, A. M., 28,47,48 Paley, N., 189,194 Palmer, F.R., 96,119 Pandolfi,A., 5,24 Papafragou, A., 69, 72, 74, 92 Parisi, D., 185,191,192 Park,!., 27, 48 Parret, H., 99,119 Pascalis, O., 19 9,224 Patriquin, M., 97,119 Pea,R.D.,i88,i94 Peltzer-Karpf, A., 198,206,209,218, 225 Pemberton, E., 183,185,194,195, 225 Pennington, B. E, 167,178,195

232

A U T H O R I N D E X

Perez-Leroux, A. T., 74,76,78,81,89,92 Perez-Pereira, M., 4,19, 20,24, !58> 161

Perkins, D., 175,194 Perkins, M. R., 96, 97,119 Perner, J., 69, 72,78, 93, 97,119 Peters, A., xix, xv, 204, 205, 206,225

Peterson, C, 3, 4, 5,6,7, 24

Peterson, D. M., 75, 93

Piaget, J., 207, 221, 226

Pieraut-Le Bonniec, G., 97,120 Pine, J., 8, 24

Pinker, S., 29, 48

Pipp-Siegel, S., 167,195 Plomin, R., 167,195 Plunkett, K., 176,185,191,192,193 Pollitt,C.,4,25 Portillo, R., 20, 24

Pressman, L. J., 167,195 Prigogine, L, 198,226 Pring, L, 176,179,181,195 Prinz, E. A., 177,184,194,195 Prinz, P. M., 177,182,184,194,195 Pure, K., 97,119 Pye.C., 54, 67

Quine, W. V. O., 140,141,162 Quixtan Poz, P., 54, 67

R Rader, N., 15 9,163

Rakic, P., 198,199,226 Records, N. L., 186,195 Redlinger, W., 27,48 Reed,E.S.,i4i,i62 Reilly.J., 163

Rice, M. L, 167,195 Richards, B. J., 205,224 Rieth, C., 201,204, 226

Riggs,K.J.,75,93 Rispoli, M., 2,3, 5, 7,20,23,52, 67

Rivero, M. L, 70, 93

Rizzolati, G., 176,195 Robbins,T.W.,i78,i93 Robinson, E. J., 75, 93

Rock, L, 202,226 Roelfsema, P. R., 208,226 Rogoff, B.,i45,162 Romo, L., 142,147,163 Ronjat,J., 28,48 Rosenberg, S., 97,117 Russell, J., 178,193

S Sacks, O., 181,195 Saffran, J. R., 203, 226

Sag, L, 72, 92

Savasir, I., 54, 57, 67

Schaeffer, J.,83,93 Schieffelin, B. B., 145,162 Schlesinger, I., 52,67,140,141,162 Schley, S., 182,195 Schwanenflugel, P. J., 97, 98,116,120 Sebastian, E., 4,24 Serra, M., 8,21, 24

Serrat, E., 8,19, 21, 24

Shatz, M., 97, 98,120 Sidman, S., 183,192 Silber, S., 97, 98,120 Silva, M., 2,3, 4, 6, 7,19, 22,23 Sinclair, H., 4,6, 21,23, 25

Singer, W., 197,198,201, 208, 224,

226

Singleton, J. L, 182,195 Sireteanu, R., 199,201, 203,204,205, 210,226 Slater, A., 204,226 Slobin, D. I., xv, xviii, xix, 4, 24, 49, 52,

53> 54> 55> 65, 66, 67,156,162, 204,

205,219,226 Slomkowski, C. L., 167,195 Smith, C. B., 141,160 Smith, E., 186,195 Smith, J. S., 7,23,161 Smith, L. B., 159,162,185,191,195,198, 202, 226

Smoczynska, M., 3,25 Snow, C. E., xii, xix, 8, 25, 56, 67,157,

162,206,226 Snyder, L, 141,160 Somerville, S. C., 97,120

AUTHOR I NDEX

Sophian, C., 97,118,120 Stadler, M., 200, 202, 224, 225 Stephany, U., 72, 93, 96, 97, 98,120 Stern, W, 221,226 Stevenson, R. J., 4, 25 Strawson, P. E, 139,162 Stromquist, S., 204, 205, 206, 225 Strong, M., 182,195 Sueur, J. P., 99,100,120 Supalla, S., 182,195 Suzman, S. M., xiii, xix, 54, 67,128,129, 130,133,134>137 T

Tabouret-Keller, A., 28, 48 Tackeff, J., 2,7, 20,23 Taeschner, T., 27, 28, 48 Tager-Flusberg, H., 74, 93 Talmy, L, xiv, xix, 141,156,162 Tenenberg, M., 147,162 Thai, D., 205, 222, 223 Thelen, E., 159,162,185,191,195,198, 202, 226 Thome, J. P., 96,117 Tijus, T., 165,176,177,178,179,183, 188,193,194,195,202, 203,222, 225 Timberlake, A., 70,71, 92 Timmerman, D. E., 183,195 Tomasello, M., xviii, xix, 6, 21,22,25, 51,52, 66, 67,141,162 Tomblin, J. B., 186,195 Tregidgo, P. S., 96,120 Tucker, M., 204,205,22 4 Turvey, M. T., 143,162 Twombly, I. A., 200, 224 Tyack, D., 19,25 U

Ullman, S., 210,226 V

van der Lem, G. J., 183,195 Verschueren, J., 116,120

233

Verstiggel, J. C., no, 120 Vihman, M. M., 27, 48 Vila, I., 27, 48 Vital-Durand, E, 204, 226 Volterra.V., 27, 28,48 Vygotsky, L. S., 142,162 W

Walker, E, 176,179,181,195 Wanner, E., xv, xix Watson-Gegeo, K. A., 145,162 Weichbold, V., 72, 93 Weil, J., 72, 92, 97, 98, 99,118 Weir, R., 20 5,226 Wellman, H. M., 69,72, 93, 97, 98,118, 120 Welsh, J. A., 157,158,162,165,170,183, 188,194 Wertheimer, M., 207, 226 Wexler, K., 140,163 Whiting, B. B., 145,163 Wickens, T, 149,152,163 Wilbur, R., 184,195 Wildsmith, R., 135,137 Wiltshire, S., 180,195 Wimmer, H., 69,72,78, 93, 97,119 Wing, L., 178,195 Wittgenstein, L, 141,163 Woolverton, M., 175,193

Yang, L., 51,67 Yoder,P.,i66,i95 Yoshinaga-Itano, C., 167,195

Zangl, R., 198,199, 206,209, 218,219, 220,225, 226 Zhang, X., 186,195 Zipursky, S. L., 198,223 Zukow, P. G., 139,140,141,144,146, 154,155,163 Zukow-Goldring, P., 139,142,144,145, 146,147,149,159,160,161,163

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Subject Index

A Absolutive case markings, 30,32-35,46 Accusative case markings, 29,31-32, 39-40,42,46 Active voice clauses, xviii, 49,60 See also Voice, active Affordances, 144,146-47,149,155,158 Agency, 49, 52-55, 64-66, 70, 86,90

Alpha program, 177,187 Ambiguity, 71-72, 84, 90, 95-96,115

Ambiguous figures, 202

Argument markings, 32,35-36, 46

Arguments, 3i~35> 37> 4i> 53.114-16 Art development, 183-85,188-89 Art drawings, 206-9,214, 221

Artiagoitia, Zabier, 46

Asperger's Syndrome, 179

Assertive statements, 101-3,107,109, 121

Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 178,188 with Motor and Perception Deficits, 188

Attention, xii, 141,160,167,187, 204-5

infant and caregiver, xiv, 142,147, 155>158 child's, 129,131 Auditory perception, 204

Autism, xv, xvi, 73,159,172,177-79

savants, 180-81,184-85 Autistic children, 165-66,175-80, 185-89

B

Bantu languages, xvii, xix, 54,126,130,

133,136 Basic Child Grammar, 52-53

Basque Country University of, 29

Basque language, xi, xvii, xviii, 20,29,

32

ergativity in, 30-35,38-40, 45-46

verbs, 3 0-31

See also Verbs Basque-Spanish bilinguals, xvii, 28-29,

33-46

Bilingual children, 197,214-15 acquisition of languages by, 27-46

See also Basque-Spanish bilinguals See also Chinese-German bilinguals See also Croatian-German bilinguals See also English-Dutch bilinguals See also English-German bilinguals See also Estonian-English bilinguals See also Estonian-Swedish bilinguals See also German-French bilinguals See also German-Italian bilinguals See also Spanish-Catalan bilinguals See also Spanish-English bilinguals See also Spanish-German bilinguals Bilingualism, 29

second-language learning, 133,135 Bizcayan dialect, 29

Blindness, 15 8-5 9

Brain, 199, 207-8,222 growth spurts, 197-98,221 self-organization in, 198

Brown's stages, 175,183,186 Bugelski and Alampay's figure, 202

C Caregivers, xiv, xvii, 56, 60,139,141-42

and infant interactions, 143-48,153 235

236

SUBJECT INDEX

Euro-American, 144-145,156 Latino, 140,146,156 messages of, 141,144-148,154-55, 157-60

methods of, 140-41,143,145,147, 156

and scaffolding effects, 158

siblings as, 145

Case markings absolutive, 30,32-35, 46

accusative, 29, 31-32,39-40, 42,

46

dative, 31, 35, 46

ergative, 29,33-35,37-38 nominative, xvii, 31, 46

Catalan language, xi, xii, i, 4, 8-11,19

Catalan-Spanish speakers, 10

Causal clauses, 3-4, 20

Causative structures, 220

Cerebral palsy, 185

Certainty, 95, 97,121 Children with disabilities, 16 8

See also Autistic children See also Deaf children See also Impaired-sight children See also Language-delayed children See also Motor-handicapped children See also Sensory-impaired children CHAT scheme, 10,209 CHILDES Project, 10,209 CHT procedure, 56

Chinese-German bilinguals, 209

Clauses See Causal clauses See Conditional clauses See Object complement clauses See Purpose and causal clauses See Relative clauses See Temporal clauses Clitics, 31, 44-45, 83

Cognitive development, xii, xvi, xvii,

6-7,22,69,73> 90-91,197-99, 206,

221

Cognitive factors, xii, 7, 65-66

Cognitive flexibility, xviii, 49,55, 64-66, 219

Coherence, 198,200, 205

Communication, 109,144 Complex sentences, i, 4-14,16-22,74, 81

Conditional clauses, 4,16,18-19, 21

Conditional mood, 95,102,111 Conjunctions, 2-3, 7-9,15,19 Continuity, 197,216, 218

Controller genders, 127-28,130,134 Conversation See Discourse Coordinate sentences, 2,15,17, 20-21

Counterfactuals, 73, 75, 84, 90

Croatian-German bilinguals, 209

D Darwin's theory of natural selection, 198

Dative case markings, 31, 35, 46

Deaf children, 74,165-66,182, 184-85,188-89 Deafness, 159

Definiteness, 74, 77, 82-89, 91

DeltaMessages program, 177,187 Deontic conditions, 100-2,106,108 Deontic meanings, 96, 98-99,103, 111-12,116 Deontic values, 104,107 Deontic modality, 70-71,102 Developmental neurobiology, 197,

221-22

Didactic imitative treatment, 172

Direct perception, 142-43

Discourses, xvii, xviii, 2, 7, 8

in acquisition of Zulu, xiii, 125,128, 132-33,135-36 interactions in, xi, xiii

in language acquisition, xi, xii, xix

nonagent subjects in, 51, 54, 57,

60-61, 64,66 as scaffold, xii, xiv

in subjunctive mood, 73-74,80, 83,

90

and Tricky Mix, 166,169,174 Dutch language, 183

SUBJECT

Dysfunction in Attention, Motor and Perception (DAMP), 188

Dynamic systems theory, xiv, xv, 160,

197-99

Dyslexia, 185,187,189

E

INDEX

237

Floating Cities, 180

Form:function relations, 220

Form perception, 203, 208, 210-14

Form recognition, 200

French-German bilinguals, xviii, 27-28

French-speaking children, 97,116, 121

French language, xi, xvii, 4,19-21, 96,

128,183 gender system of, 125

indicative mood in, 102

modal verbs in, 97-98,103,112, 115-16

Frequency, 202,205-6,214-15, 222-23

Effectivities, 144,146-47,155 Elicitation, 76-79, 84-89

Elicitation methods, 172

English language, xviii, 183, 206,

215-16,218-19 and complex sentences, 2,5,10, 19-21

and subjunctive mood, 70,75, 82

passive voice in, 186

and gestures, xvii

as satellite-framed language, xiv, 156

acquisition of, xvi, xix, 129

modal verbs in, 72

verbs in, 124

English speakers, 49, 52-53, 55, 58,

63-65

English-speaking children, 62, 97,116 English-Dutch bilinguals, xviii, 28

English-German bilinguals, 27,209 Epistemic conditions, 101,106,108 Epistemic meanings, 96, 98-99,103, 111,116 Epistemic modality, 70-74, 90, 97,

102,112 Epistemic values, 104,107 Ergative case markings, 29,33-34, 37-39.46 Ergativity, xvii, 29,33 Estonian-English bilinguals, 27

Estonian-Swedish bilinguals, 28

Euskal See Basque language

Gallician language, 4,19-20 Gender classes, 125-26,135 Gender systems, 123,125,130,136 See also Target genders German-Italian bilinguals, 27

German language, xi, xix, xviii, 2, 97,

181,206, 209, 214-15,218-20 German-language speakers, 49, 55-56,

62-63,65 German-speaking children, xviii, 62,

64,182 Gestalt principles, 197-200, 207-8,

216,221-22 Gesturing, xiv, xvii, 140,146-48,154,

206

by Latino caregivers, 155-57

relation between speech and acts, 141,146-47.154,157,159 Good forms, 200, 208,216-18, 222-23

Graphic development, 221

Grammar systems, 27-46, 52, 90

Grammatical codes, 28, 45

F

H

False beliefs, xvi, 69,72,74-75, 78, 80,

82, 90

Ferko, Kelly, 160

Fernandez, Jesus, 46

Hearing impairment, xv, 172

Hebrew language, xix

Hebrew-speaking children, 54

Holophrases, 51

G

238

SUBJECT INDEX

I

Impaired-sight children, 208,214 See also Blindness Impairments, 159

Indefiniteness, 74, 81-84, 87-88, 91

India, 145

Indicative mood, 9-10,19,71,81-82, 89, 95,102,111 Infants, xiv, 139,145 attentions of, 139-40,144-45 comprehension of, 144,147 Euro-American, 144-145,154 Latino, 145,148,154 lexical development in, 140,146, 149

perceiving referring actions, 144,

147

pre-linguistic period, 141,148,155 vocalizations of, 148

Inflectional morphology, 123,133,136 Input selection, xiii, 208-9, 214~15>

223

Inputs in acquisition of complex sentences, 6-7,20,22,74 in acquisition of Zulu, 125,133, 135-36

by caregivers, 157-58

and language delays, 166,175-76, 189,191 in linguistic development, xi, xii, xv,

xvi, xviii, 203,205,218

and nonagent subjects, 53-54, 59

Inuktitut language, xix, 54

Italian language, 2,4,19-20, 83

J Jastrow's figure, 202

K

Kahluli (New Guinea), 145

Keller, Helen, 158

K'iche'Mayan, 54

Kindergarten, xvi, 168,190,208

Korean language, 3

Kwara'ae (Solomon Islands), 145

L Language as communicative interaction, 9 5, 112,114-16 delays in, 165-67,172 development in, 141,160,166 impairments in, xv, 73,133,169-70, 173-74,181-82,185 representative function of, 95

See also Target language Language acquisition, xi, xiv, i, 6-7,22,

cognitive flexibility in, 49

delay in, 73,157-59, i7 2 > 181,185 of ergative languages, 53

learning conditions for, 167-68,171, 173> 177.180-82,184,188, 190-91,215 of nominative-accusative languages, 53,55 nonagent subjects in, 49-66

multimedia methods for, 175-78,

183,186-88 Alpha program, 177,187 DeltaMessages program, 177,187 in second-language, 181,206,209, 218-19

and theory of mind, 74

Language-delayed children, xiv, xvi,

134-35,165,168-69,174,182, 185-86,189 self-esteem in, 166-68,185-86,189 Language fusion, 28

Language separation, 28

Language socialization, 145

LEARN scheme, xvi, 167-69,184 Linguistic development, xi, xvii, xviii,

197,199, 204,209,221 Linguistic recasts, 169,171-72,174-75, 177-78,186,190 Linguistic structures, 218-19

Literacy development, 166,170, 174-77,179,183,185-89,191 "loi de Grammont," 28

SUBJECT INDEX

M

Mandarin language, 97 Manipulative Activity Scene, 52-53 Metacognitive abilities, 6 Metonomy, 5 9 Middle voice clauses, xviii, 49,54,62 , 65 See also Voice, middle Modal expressions, 75, 97-98,109, 115-16 as social interactions, 98 in narratives, 112-115 Modal language, 75 Modal markers, 96,98-99,109 Modal sentences, no Modal terms, 97, 99,104,115 Modal types, 70 Modal utterances, 95, 98-99, no See also Utterances Modal verbs, xi, xvii, 96, 98,103,108, 110-12,116 See also Verbs Modality, 69-70, 72, 75, 80-81, 90-91, 95-96, 98,112,115-16 Modals, 107,109 as mental representations, 72, 74-75, 86, 90-91, 98-99,103, 112,116 Mood, 69,76-77, 81, 86, 96 See also Conditional mood See also Indicative mood See also Subjunctive mood Mood distinctions, 103 Mood markers, 70-71 Motor-handicapped children, 187 Myelinization, 199

239

Nominative case marking, xvii, 31,46 Nonagent subjects, 49-66 Nonspecificity, xvi, 69,72,75, 80-83, 86-91 Noun class, xvii, 136

O Object complement clauses, 2-3, 9,14, 18-21 Ontogeny, 198-99, 203 Overt gender languages, 126-27,136 See also Gender classes See also Gender systems

P Passive voice clauses, xviii, 2, 49,62,6 5 See also Voice, passive Pattern formation, 197-98,201, 205-7, 209,214,216,220-23 Perceptual development, 203,208-10, 212,214 Perceptual structure, 142-45,148-55, 158-59 Polish language,3 Polysemy, 70, 95-96, 98,115 Principle of Contrast, xiii, 123-25 Proximity, 197,216,220 Purpose and causal clauses, 14,17,19, 21,80

Q Quiche language, xix R

N Narratives, 49, 55,76,113-14,116,121, 156,174-76,181 Neural system, 197-98,200-1,221-22 No Blur Principle, xiii, 123-26,128,133, 135-36 Nominative-accusative languages, 50, 53

Rare Event Transactional Model, 16 6, 170,178,184,191 Recursive learning, 6 Reinforcements, 172 Relative clauses, xvi, 3,5, 9,15,20-21, 77, 84-85, 87-88,167,174 in subjunctive mood, 69,71,75, 77-82,84,86,88-90 REL model, 215

240

SUBJECT INDEX

REL theory, 222

Reproduction of forms, 197, 210

configurations in, 202, 208, 210,

212,214,222-23 shapes in, 210, 212, 222

size in, 210, 214,222 spatial position in, 210-11, 214, 222

Romance languages, xi, 4, 8,19 Rubin's figure, 202

S Saliency, 202-3, 205, 210,212, 214, 216,

222-23

Scaffolding effect, xiv, i, 7, 22, 57, 60,

167,177,185 Scene segmentation, 197-200,202-3, 221-22

Self-organization, 198-99, 201-4,221 Semantic assimilation, 52

Semantic complexity, 6

Semilingualism, 182

Sensory-impaired children, 203

Sesotho language, xvii, 126,133-34, 136

See also Bantu languages Sign language, 177,179,182-85,187, 191

Similarity, 197, 216, 219-20

Social ecological realism, xiv, 65-66,

157

cultural knowing in, 142-44

Spanish-Catalan bilinguals, 27

Spanish language, xi, xvii, xviii

accusativity in, 29-32, 40-42,

45-46

acquisition of complex sentences in, xii, i, 3-6,8-11,19, 21

conjunctions in, 5-6, 8,15 definiteness in, 84, 88, 90-91

indicative mood in, 10,71, 76, 78,

89

mood in, 77,81, 84, 88, 91

relative clauses in, xvi, 3, 5-6, 9-10,

13,18,19,71 specificity in, 81,84,86,89

subjunctive mood in, xvi.io, 70-72,

91

as verb-framed language, xiv, 156

Spanish relative clauses, 72,75 subjunctive mood in, 75-78, 90

Spanish-speaking children, xvi, 69,80, 84

Spanish-English bilinguals, 28

Spanish-German bilinguals, 27

Spanish-speaking caregivers, 155,157 Spatial concepts, 204, 207,221 Specific language impairment (SLI), i34-35> 170-72,182,185-87,190 Specificity, 72,75, 80-84, 87, 89-91,

221

Speech, 186-87

acts of, 109-10,115-16,135-36 caregivers', 145,158-59 child-directed, 206

children's, 20,215-16 comprehension in, 141,144 elicited, 198, 209

infants', 139,141,146-47,149, 204

spontaneous, 198

See also Utterances Subjunctive mood, 5, 9-10,19-20, 69,

76,79,85 Sullivan, Annie, 158

Swedish-speaking children, 177,182, 188

T Temporal clauses, 3,16,18-19, 21-22

Theory of mind, 69,72-75,78-80, 83-84,86-88,90 development in, 74-75, 84

tests in, xvi, 79, 86-88

Transactional dynamics, 165-66,168, 170,185,191 Transparency, 205-6,210, 214, 222

Tricky Mix, xiv, xv, xvi, 157,166-68,

!7°-77> 179-89,191,222 Turkish language, 2,4,54 Turkish-speaking families, 181-82

SUBJECT INDEX

U

Uncertainty, 95, 97,121 Utterances, xiv, 29,32, 39,114, 205-6,

216 adult's, xii, xiii, 7-8,17-18, 21-22

caregiver's, 148,156,158 child's, xii, xiii, xviii, 129,132,135,

169,179,186 in complex sentences, 10-11,20-21 infant's, 149

linguistic specificity in, 148,150-51, 153-55

as modal expressions, 98,104, 106-9

with nonagent subjects, 45, 56-57,

59,61-63 See also Speech See also Target utterances V

Verb Island Hypothesis, 52

Verbal inflection, xvii, xviii, 30-31,

36-38,44,46 Verbs, xii, xiii, xvii, 2, 217, 220

in Basque-Spanish bilingualism, 30,

33-35,39,41,45

24!

modals, xvii, 97,102,120-21 with nonagent subjects, 49-50,

52-53,55-56,59.62 in Roman languages, 8-10,14, 20-22

in subjunctive mood, xvi, 5,70-71 Vision neurobiology of, 200,207 Visual cortices, 221

Visual development, 199,203,205 Visual perception, xv, 197, 204, 208

Visual saliency, 205

Voice active, 50-54, 58-62, 64, 65

middle, 50-51, 53~55, 57-65

passive, 50-51, 53~57> 59,6 2

Voice alternations, 50-51

Z Zulu language, xi, 125-26

adult morphology of, 125-36

as overt gender language, xiii,

135-36

child morphology of, 125-36

noun classes in, xvii, 127-35

subject marker in, 133

verb classes in, 124,127,129