Moving in small steps towards verb second: A case study

Abstract

<jats:p>This paper examines rule-based learning and item-based learning in relation to a Swedish child's acquisition of verb second in main clauses. While rule-based accounts assert that young children have access to syntactic structure and acquire a rule of generalized verb second, item-based accounts claim that young children are reproducing frequent word combinations in the input. The paper provides new and important data from one Swedish child, concluding that the acquisition of verb second is the result of rule-based learning.</jats:p>

The Acquisition of Neg-V and V-Neg Order in Embedded Clauses in Swedish: A Microparametric Approach

“…However, as in other embedded clauses (see Table 4), Tea differs from the other children by using Neg-V order in her earliest examples of att-clauses (at 2;09-3;00). This is in line with the hypothesis that Tea's initial grammar is characterized by no verb movement across negation (see Waldmann 2012), which was adopted previously to account for Tea's early use of Neg-V order in other embedded clauses. V-Neg order appears in Tea's att-clauses in the age period 3;00-3;03.…”

“…V-Neg order appears in Tea's att-clauses in the age period 3;00-3;03. Interestingly, the onset of V-Neg order in att-clauses largely overlaps with the onset of V-Neg in main clauses in the age period 2;10-3;03 (see Waldmann 2012).…”

“…In line with much previous research, Westergaard also finds that word-order errors are few and that errors are almost always a result of children using less movement than in the adult language. This observation has led many scholars to propose that there are economy principles operating in the process of acquiring a language, principles that make children conservative language learners (Platzack 1996;Zuckerman 2001;Gavarrò 2003;Westergaard 2009aWestergaard , 2009bWestergaard , 2011Waldmann 2012). For example, Westergaard & Bentzen (2007) suggest that syntactic movement does not take place in child language unless it is clearly expressed in the input (see also Westergaard 2008b).…”

“…Some examples are provided in the sentences in (11) and (12). Further, whereas Swedish children are exposed to a robust evidence for V2 in main clauses (on average, 50-60% of all verbal utterances in child-directed Swedish provide evidence for V2, see Waldmann 2008Waldmann , 2012 and consistently use V2 in main wh-questions (Santelmann 1995;Josefsson 2003aJosefsson , 2003bWaldmann 2008), they never use V2 in indirect wh-questions. In the investigated sample, there are 325 indirect wh-questions and only 1, or 0.3%, has V2 (wh-v-su), whereas the remaining 324 have a target-consistent non-V2 order (wh-su-v).…”

“….ifall jag inte tyckte jag är kul. (from Håkansson & Dooley Collberg 1994:122) Swedish children's V-Neg errors in embedded clauses are particularly interesting considering that Swedish children rarely misplace finite verbs in main clauses (Santelmann 1995;Josefsson 2003aJosefsson , 2003bWaldmann 2008Waldmann , 2012. Further, such errors are also interesting from a crosslinguistic perspective.…”