Abstract
This paper is concerned with the acquisition of the morphosyntax of finite verbs by monolingual children acquiring British English as their first language. The primary data are drawn from a large naturalistic sample of more than 100,000 early child utterances (based on the corpus of 39 cross-sectional and 94 longitudinal studies described in Radford, 1990a:11-13). The theoretical framework used will be that of Government and Binding Theory (=GB), in the version outlined in Chomsky (1986), with modifications introduced by Abney (1987) and Pollock (1989). In order to clarify some of the descriptive assumptions made here, I shall beg in by providing a brief outline of the morphosyntax of finite verbs in adult English.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abney, S.P.: 1987, ‘The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect’, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Akmajian, A. and F.W. Heny: 1975, An Introduction to the Principles of Transformational Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Aldridge, M.: 1989, The Acquisition of INFL, Indiana University Linguistics Club Publications, Bloomington.
Anisfeld, M.: 1984, Language Development From Birth to Three, Erlbaum, London.
Atkinson, M.: 1982, Explanations in the Study of Child Language Development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bellugi, U.: 1965, ‘The development of interrogative structures in children’s speech’, in K. Riegel (ed.), The Development of Language Functions, University of Michigan Language Development Program, report no. 8.
Benedict, H.E.: 1979, ‘Early lexical development: comprehension and production’. Journal of Child Language 6, 183–200.
Bloom, L.: 1970. Language Development. MIT Press. Cambridge.
Bloom. L.: 1973, One Word at a Time. Mouton, The Hague.
Bloom. L.. P. Lightbown and L. Hood: 1978, ‘Pronominal-nominal variation in child language’. in L. Bloom (ed.), Readings in Language Development, Wiley, New York.
Borer, H. and K. Wexler: 1987, ‘The maturation of syntax’, in T. Roeper and E. Williams (eds.), Parameter Setting, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Bowerman, M.: 1973, Early Syntactic Development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Braine, M. D. S.: 1976, Children’s First Word Combinations, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, vol. 41.
Brown, R.: 1968, ‘The development of wh questions in child speech’, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 7,279–290.
Brown, R.: 1973, A First lAnguage: The Early Stages, Allen and Unwin, London.
Brown, R. and U. Bellugi: 1964, ‘Three processes in the child’s acquisition of syntax’, Harvard Educational Review 34, 133–151.
Brown, R. and C. Fraser: 1963, ‘The acquisition of syntax’, in C. Cofer and B. Musgrave (eds.), Verbal Behaviour and Learning: Problems and Processes, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Cazden, C. B.: 1972, Child Language and Education, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Chomsky, N.: 1986, Barriers, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Chomsky, N.: 1989, ’some notes on economy of derivation and representation’,MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 10, 43–74.
Cinque, G.: 1988, ‘Parameter setting in “instantaneous” and real-time acquisition’, The Behavioural and Brain Sciences 12, 336–337.
Erreich, A., V. Valian and J. Winziemer: 1980, ‘Aspects of a theory of language acquisition’, Journal of Child Language 7,157–179.
Ervin-Tripp, S. M.: 1964, ‘Imitation and structural change in children’s language’, in E. H. Lenneberg (ed.), New Directions in the Study of Language, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Fasold, R.: 1980, The Relation between Black and White Speech in the South, Mimeo. School of Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington DC.
Fassi Fehri, A.: 1988, ‘Generalised IP structure, case, and VS word order’, in A. Fassi Fehri, A. Hajji, H, Elmoujahid and A. Jamari (eds.), Proceedings of the First International Conference of the Linguistic Society of Morocco, Editions OKAD, Rabat.
Fassi Fehri, A.: 1990, ‘Issues in the structure of Arabic clauses and words’, ms., University of Rabat.
Fukui, N.: 1986, ‘A theory of category projection and its applications’, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Gleitman, L. and E. Wanner: 1982, ‘Language acquisition: The state of the state of the art’, in E. Wanner and L. Gleitman (eds.), Language Acquisition: The State of the Art, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Goodluck, H.: 1991, Language Acquisition: A Linguistic Introduction, Blackwell, Oxford.
Gruber, J.: 1967, ‘Topicalization in child language’, Foundations of Language 3, 37–65.
Guilfoyle, E. and M. Noonan: 1989, ‘Functional categories and language acquisition’, ms., McGill University.
Hill, J. A. C.: 1983, A Computatiollal Model of Language Acquisition in the Two Year Old, Indiana University Linguistics Club Publications, Bloomington.
Hoekstra, T.: 1984, Transitivity: Grammatical Relations in Government-Binding Theory, Foris, Dordrecht.
Hurford, J.: 1975, ‘A child and the English question formation rule’, Journal of Child Language 2,299–301.
Hyams, N.: 1986, Language Acquisition and the Theory of Parameters, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Kazman, R.: 1988, ‘Null Arguments and the Acquisition of Case and INFL’, text of paper presented at University of Boston conference on language acquisition.
Kitagawa, Y.: 1986, ’subject in Japanese and English’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Klima, E.S. and U. Bellugi: 1966, ’syntactic regularities in the speech of children’, in J. Lyons and R. Wales (eds.) Psycholinguistic Papers, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Koopman, H. and D. Sportiche: 1985, ‘Theta theory and extraction’, GLOW Newsletter 14, 57–58.
Kuczaj, S.: 1976, ‘Arguments against Hurford’s AUX Copying Rule’, Journal of Child Language 3, 423–427.
Kuczaj, S.: 1977, ‘The acquisition of regular and irregular past tense inflections’, Journal of Verbal Learning anti Verbal Behaviour 16, 589–600.
Kuroda, S.-Y.: 1987 ‘(D)Accord ou Pas Accord: quelques idées générales concernant une grammaire comparée de l’anglais et dujaponais’, Recherches Linguistiques 14-15, 189–206.
Labov, W.: 1969, ‘Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula’, Language 45, 715–762.
Lebeaux, D.S.: 1987, ‘Comments on Hyams’, in T. Roeper and E. Williams (eds.), Parameter Setting, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Lebeaux, D.S.: 1988, ‘Language acquisition and the form of the grammar’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Major, D.: 1974, The Acquisition of Modal Auxiliaries in the Language of Children. Mouton, The Hague.
McCune-Nicolich, L.: 1981, ‘The cognitive bases of relational words in the single word period’, Journal of Child Language 8,15–34.
Menyuk P.: 1969, Sentences Children Use, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Miller, W. and S. Ervin-Tripp: 1973, ‘The development of grammar in child language’, in C. Ferguson and D. Siobin (eds.), Studies of Child Language Development, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Newport, E., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman: 1977, ‘Mother, please I’d rather do it myself: Some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style’, in C. Snow and C. Ferguson (eds.), Talking to Children: Language Input anti Acquisition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Phinney, M.: 1981. ’syntactic constraints and the acquisition of embedded sentential complements’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Platzack, C.: 1990, ‘A grammar without functional categories: A syntactic study of early Swedish duld language’, Nordic Journal of linguistics 13, 107–126, also published in Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 45, 51-76.
Pollock, L-Y.: 1989, ‘Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP’, Linguistic Inquiry 20, 365–424.
Radford, A.: 1986, ’small children’s small clauses’,Bangor Research Papers in linguistics 1. 1–38.
Radford, A.: 1987, ‘The acquisition of the complementiser system’, Bangor Research Papers in linguistics 2, 55–76.
Radford, A.: 1988, ’small children’s small clauses’, Transactions of the Philological Society 86, 1–46 (revised and extended version of Radford, 1986).
Radford, A.: 1990a, Syntactic Theory anti the Acquisition of English Syntax: the Nature of Early Child Grammars of English, Blackwell, Oxford.
Radford, A.: 1990b, ‘The syntax of nominal arguments in early child English’, Language Acquisition 1, 195–223.
Radford, A.: 1991a, ‘Comments on Roeper and deVilliers’, to appear in J. Weissenborn, H. Goodluck and T. Roeper (eds.), Theoretical Issues in Language Acquisition, Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Radford, A.: 1991b, ’small children’s small minds’, paper presented at Linguistics Association of Great Britain meeting, York.
Rudin, C.: 1988, ‘On multiple questions and multiple wh fronting’, Natural Language and linguistic Theory 6, 445–501.
Slobin, D.I.: 19792, Psycholinguistics, Scott Foresman and Co., Glenview.
Smith, M.: 1926, ‘An investigation of the development of the sentence and the extent of vocabulary in young children’, University of lowa Studies in Child Welfare, vol. 3, no. 5.
Taraldsen, K.T.: 1986, ‘On verb second and the functional content of syntactic categories’, in H. Haider and M. Prinzhorn (eds.), Verb Second Phenomena in Germanic Languages, Foris, Dordrecht.
de Villiers, P.A. and J.G. de Villiers: 1973, ‘A cross-sectional study of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in child speech’, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 2, 267–278.
Wells, G.: 1979, ‘Learning and using the auxiliary verb in English’, in V. Lee (ed.), Language Development, Croom Helm, London.
Wells, G.: 1985, Language Development in Preschool Years, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Wolfram, W.: 1971, ‘Black-white speech differences revisited’, in W. Wolfram and N. H. Clark (eds.), Black-White Speech Relationships, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Radford, A. (1992). The Acquisition of the Morphosyntax of Finite Verbs in English. In: Meisel, J.M. (eds) The Acquisition of Verb Placement. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2803-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2803-2_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5245-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2803-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive