Abstract
Recursion is the heart of generative grammar. Our experiments with preschool children suggest that that recursive cyclic movement in wh-chains is available to 4-yr-olds. More surprisingly, extraction of wh-adjunct questions from doubly-embedded complements, i.e. three clauses, seems simpler for children than extraction from a single embedded clause. In comprehension experiments, children were more likely to resist answering the recursive questions with a response that only related the wh-trace to the last verb. We attribute this to the semantic uniformity imposed by cyclic wh-movement. Theoretical work has not yet answered satisfactorily the question of which options from the expanded left periphery might be available at each CP, but this might hold the clue for explaining the results in child language acquisition.
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Notes
- 1.
Widmer et al. add (2017: 802): “More generally, hierarchical structures can be stipulated by declaring one-off ‘embedding’ relations, for example, in the form of fixed constructional schemas or templates. What syntactic recursion yields beyond such templates is unlimited expansion in embedding depths, and, equally important, recursion guarantees identity of categories across levels: while both the rule pair ‘embed B in A’ and ‘embed C in B’ and the single recursive rule ‘embed α in α (with α = {A, B, C})’ can generate the hierarchical structure [A[B[C]]], only the recursive rule assigns the same category label α to all three constituents.”
- 2.
The most recent version is, including nodes for Interrogative, embedded Q, “(2) [Force [Top* [Int [Top* [Foc [Top* [Mod [Top* [Qemb [Fin [IP …]]]]]]]]]]]” (Rizzi and Bocci 2017).
They add these explanations:
“—each layer in (1) is an abbreviation for a much richer structural zone; e.g.,, the C layer is split into finer components Force, Int, Fin, etc., as in (2);
—complex functional sequences emerge for each zone;
—such richer syntactic representations permit a more transparent mapping with the interface systems.
The latter point is sometimes referred to as the syntacticization of argumental and scope-discourse semantics: thematic roles, scope and discourse-related properties are read off simple and uniform Spec—Head—Complement representations provided by syntax.”
- 3.
It is argued that not all such phenomena can be captured in a single mechanism (Aelbrecht et al. 2012).
- 4.
See Roeper (2015) for discussion of how the acquisition path for infinitival CP can mirror the shift from German to English over 500 years.
- 5.
See also Harrigan et al. (2015). Hope to complements are understood well before hope that complements.
- 6.
Hacquard and Lidz (2019) also present an interesting variety of arguments and evidence for the relevance of QUD to false belief reasoning, but without an account of how it is constrained by syntax.
- 7.
A further issue for this claim arises from the work on intervention effects for example by Friedmann et al. (2009) and Bentea et al. (2016). They demonstrate the vulnerability of wh-chains to certain classes of intervenors that overlap with the wh in grammatically relevant semantic features, like number, gender, or animacy. We take this first as evidence from another direction that children understand wh-questions before all dimensions of the interfaces are fixed. In this case the internal Nominal properties of the wh-word and not internal verbal properties that dictate complements are what first influences children’s non-adult representation. Children must decide, for instance, whether gender is a lexical or a grammatical feature in a particular language.
- 8.
Many interesting questions remain about what can be in complement clauses. In particular, Indirect Questions are possible, but are not meant to be answered. In Partial movement, wh-words are forced to move to the matrix clause at LF in order to be in the domain of a Speech Act.
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Acknowledgements
We are particularly grateful to the parents who allowed their children to participate in the research described here, and the children themselves. We would like to thank audiences at the German Society for Linguistics (DGFS) in Konstanz in 2016, the audiences at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Austin Texas in 2017, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition in Majorca in 2017, the Language Acquisition Workshop between U.Mass, U.Conn, Smith College and MIT (LAWNE), and the Language Acquisition Research group (LARC) at U.Mass. Bart Hollebrandse also deserves thanks for many useful discussions about recursion. Finally, we would like to express our sorrow about the untimely passing of our colleague Akira Omaki, whose valuable work was instrumental in reinvigorating our efforts to explore the acquisition of wh-movement.
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10.6 Appendix 1: Full Set of Stories
10.6 Appendix 1: Full Set of Stories
We illustrate the concept with Story 1. The numbers in the story refer to the numbered code of hypothetical interpretations of the wh-question, not all of which are grammatical interpretations for adults. The remaining stories number the types of answers as they occur in the story.
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i.
Billy got a train set when he went to see his Grandma (3) in the summer. (2) One night Dad said to Mom, “I really like that train Billy got on his (5) first birthday.” Mom was a bit sleepy so she didn’t listen very well. The next morning (1) when she was taking a shower, she laughed about it. She thought Dad was (4) talking in his sleep and said that Billy got the train when he was (6) first born!
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When did Mom think Dad said Billy got his train?
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Answers:
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1st verb (think) = (1) in the shower
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2nd verb (say) = (2) in bed at night
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3rd verb (got) = (3) in the summer
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Integrate (think + say) = (4) while sleeping
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Integrate (say + got) = (5) at first birthday
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Integrate (think + say + got) = (6) when born.
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ii.
The little girl is playing with a new puppy dog and she called her Dad to tell him. (2) At work, her Dad thought (5) Mom gave her the puppy. The little girl (3) actually found the puppy in the rain out in the street. When Dad got home, the girl saw him in the living room and he looked puzzled. She ran to Mom in the kitchen (1) and said, “Dad is in the living room (4) and he thinks I got the puppy (6) at the pet store?”
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Where did the girl say her Dad thought she got the puppy?
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iii.
At school Will was playing with his friend Andrew. Andrew really liked Will’s new ball. While (1) Andrew on the swingset, he asked Will where he got the ball. Andrew thought Will was (4) on the monkey bars but really he was (2) on the slide, see? The other kids on the playground were really loud, so Andrew thought Will said that he got his new ball at the (6) hall. But Will said he got his new ball (5) at the mall, because he forgot that he really got the ball at his (3) aunt’s house when he went to visit.
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Where did Andrew think that Will said he got his ball?
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iv.
The cat ripped the pillow (3) in the nighttime. (5) When Mr. Applebee came home he saw the cat with stuffing in his mouth and thought the cat probably ripped the pillow (4) just before he came in. But the cat had played with the pillow all day and still had stuffing in her mouth. Mrs. Appleby said the cat must have ripped it (5) a while ago-look at all the stuffing lying about? (1) After they cleaned it all up Mrs. Appleby called her daughter and said “Your father thinks the cat ripped the pillow (6) when we were out at work”.
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When did Mrs. Applebee say that Mr. Appleby thought the cat ripped the pillow?
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v.
Mom and Dad were planning a fun family vacation to the beach (3). At school pick up (2), Dad made a joke and told the kids they were going to the moon for vacation (2). Mom was still coming out of school so she didn’t really hear what he said. Later, she sat in the living room (1) with her friend and said that Dad told the kids (4) in the car they were going (6) to the mall for vacation.
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Where did Mom say Dad told the kids they were going on vacation?
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vi.
This dragon loved to be with people but they were always afraid of him. He decided to make a cake to make friends (3). He knocked on the door. But the girl came to the door and screamed when she saw him. The dragon tried to make friends (2) and said “I made food—(5) Can I eat with you?” Her Dad heard her scream and asked what was wrong (1). She told Dad “A dragon says (6) he wants to eat me up!” (4) so that Dad would chase the dragon away. But instead, Dad made friends and they had a lovely dinner.
Why did the girl tell Dad the dragon said he was at the door?
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de Villiers, J., Kotfila, J., Roeper, T. (2020). When Is Recursion Easier for Children?. In: Guijarro-Fuentes, P., Suárez-Gómez, C. (eds) New Trends in Language Acquisition Within the Generative Perspective. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1932-0_10
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