The Acquisition of Clause Chaining in Nungon

Abstract

The clause chain is an under-investigated complex sentence type, found in hundreds of languages. In a clause chain, as many as 20 or more ‘medial’ clauses with under-specified verbal predicates combine with a single ‘final’ clause with fully-specified verbal predicate. Clause chains are of interest for three main reasons: (a) the special syntactic relationship between clauses, which is neither textbook subordination nor coordination; (b) the potential extreme length of a single chain; and (c) switch-reference marking in clause chains of some languages could require speakers to plan at least one clause ahead as they speak. Research on child production of complex sentences has largely overlooked clause chains. Longitudinal data for three children aged 1;1 to 3;3 acquiring the Papuan language Nungon show that Nungon-speaking children begin producing clause chains around the age of 2;4, with a marked increase in rate of use around age 2;11. Chain length is limited to two clauses until age 3;1. Different-subject marking in medial clauses is used by all three children early, but is first attested in one-clause, ‘root medial’ contexts, rather than in chains. Bayesian statistical models confirm the strong tendency for children to use root medials in expressions of desires and commands. Children’s production of three types of complex sentences—clause chains, subordinated final clauses, and coordinated final clauses—is shown to be subject to the same type of developmental constraint; but once development reaches an adequate level for increased complex sentence production, children acquiring Nungon produce many more clause chains than complex sentences involving subordinated or coordinated final clauses.

Beyond the Two-Clause Sentence: Acquisition of Clause Chaining in Six Languages

“… Sarvasy (2020) suggested that switch-reference marking in clause chains could pose a cognitive hurdle for children, in that it apparently requires speakers to plan chains at least two clauses at a time (to be able to mark in advance whether the subject of the upcoming clause will be the same or different). Sarvasy (2020) proposed that children had three hypothetical options to mitigate the cognitive demands of switch-reference marking: (a) produce other types of complex sentences (which do not require such cross-clause reference tracking) before ever producing clause chains; (b) use only same-subject chains, to avoid having to track subjects; or (c) use morphologically reduced medial verbs to avoid either same-subject or different-subject marking within clause chains. Sarvasy (2020) showed that children acquiring Nungon do not pursue strategy (a) or (c), whereas there is limited evidence that one child uses strategy (b) for about 5 months (2;5–2;10).…”

“… Sarvasy (2020) proposed that children had three hypothetical options to mitigate the cognitive demands of switch-reference marking: (a) produce other types of complex sentences (which do not require such cross-clause reference tracking) before ever producing clause chains; (b) use only same-subject chains, to avoid having to track subjects; or (c) use morphologically reduced medial verbs to avoid either same-subject or different-subject marking within clause chains. Sarvasy (2020) showed that children acquiring Nungon do not pursue strategy (a) or (c), whereas there is limited evidence that one child uses strategy (b) for about 5 months (2;5–2;10). The use of same-subject chains for a much more extended period by Ku Waru and Pitjantjatjara children probably stems from distributions in the ambient language.…”

“…a Because the longitudinal studies all involved staggered ages, the child counts in parentheses represent the total number of children in each study whose data were captured at this particular stage. For instance, of the 3 Nungon children in Sarvasy (2020), child 1 was studied from ages 1;1 through 2;4, child 2 from 2;1 through 3;3, and child 3 from 2;10 through 3;3. Only the two younger children's data (child 1 and child 2) show evidence of the earliest clause chain productions (at 2;4 and 2;5), and only the two older children's data (child 2 and child 3) show evidence of the onset of 3-5-clause chains (at 3;1 for both).…”

“…Finally, switch-reference marking within clause chains means that sentence planning spans discrete clauses. If children can produce switch-reference marking accurately, this could represent advanced sentence planning abilities ( Sarvasy, 2020 ). On the other hand, if this long-distance planning is difficult for young children, we wonder what strategies they adopt to produce clause chains without necessarily having to indicate switch-reference: do they avoid clause chaining altogether, produce reduced forms of medial verbs, or produce only same-subject clause chains?…”

“…We investigated these three topics through a synthesizing analysis of this Research Topic’s acquisition studies on three Eurasian clause-chaining languages, with many millions of speakers – Japanese ( Clancy, 1985 , 2020 2 ), Korean ( Choi, 2020 ), and Turkish ( Aksu-Koç and Slobin, 1985 ; Ögel-Balaban and Aksu-Koç, 2020 ) – as well as three under-described clause chaining languages of Papua New Guinea and Australia, each with fewer than 5000 speakers – Ku Waru ( Rumsey et al, 2020 ), Nungon ( Sarvasy, 2020 ), and Pitjantjatjara ( Defina, 2020 ). Although these studies target children between 1;1 and 10 years, our emphasis in this comparative analysis is on early development, drawing primarily on the early, qualitative, longitudinal components of these studies.…”