Notes on a Research Statement for
Child First Language Acquisition:
Twin Working Papers
Joseph Galasso
2003
Paper
no.1 'Notes on a Research Statement: The Gradual
Development
Hypothesis
and the Dual Mechanism Model of Language
Development'
(2003a).
Paper
no.2 'Towards a Converging Theories Model of
Child Language
Acquisition:
Continuing Discontinuity' (2003b).
Dept.
of English / Linguistics Program
California
State University, Northridge
18111
Nordhoff St., Northridge, Ca. 91330
www.csun.edu/~galasso
joseph.galasso@csun.edu
Notes on a Research Statement: The Gradual Development
Hypothesis[1] and The
Dual Mechanism Model[2]
of Language Development
Joseph Galasso
California State University, Northridge
2003
Abstract
The study of syntactic development in children, for
all intents and purposes, is reducible to a single minded inquiry into how the
very young child (implicitly) knows to distinguish between lexical stems and functional affixes. Hence, the overriding question burning in the minds
of most developmental linguist is morpho-phonological in nature. For instance,
it would seem that the child must at least know (a priori) the stem before she can then engage in a dual-track
process by which ambient separation of the morpho-phonological distinction
attributive to past tense is carried out, say, between the paradigmatic
representation of the English word play vs. play-ed /ple-d/ (a dual processing which provokes separation of the /play/-stem and
the /d/-affix). Otherwise, it
could be conceivable for the young child that the pair play-played
would represent all together two different lexical stems, and, stored as such,
reflect two distinct though relatively similar semantic notions (a single
processing): perhaps not unlike what we do find regarding derived words where
an otherwise 'two-morpheme' analysis of [teach]-{er} is
processed (tagged, stored and retrieved) as a 'single-morpheme' stem [teacher], similar to how the word [brother]
is stored.[3]
A
two-point conclusion is reached in this paper: (i) that children have instant
access to and make tacit use of innate syntactic knowledge, allowing them
instinctively to know to separate stem from affix--leading to a Gradual
Development Hypothesis which shows
developmental asymmetry between the acquisition of lexical vs. functional
categories (Radford 1990)--and (ii) that such prima facie knowledge naturally arises from The Dual Mechanism
Model, a processing model that offers
the best of both worlds in that it can account for both how the child comes to
'know' lexical stems in the first place, and subsequently, how such stems come
to be distinguished and project morpho-phonological material leading to stem
vs. affix separation.
Finally,
an interesting and potentially far reaching implication is advanced stating
that there resides not only a dual routing system in the brain for the split
processing of stem+affix material,
but that the proposed dual model can be extended in such a way as to cast an
entirely new dual-typology of language in the sense that (i) 'modular-complex' weak-stem/synthetic languages with a low, medium to high
gradient range of stem modularity (English, Spanish to Hebrew, respectively)
come to use the cerebral rule-based processing area as an additional language
storage capacity, in contrast to (ii) 'modular-simple' strong-stem/analytical, agglutinative languages (Chinese,
Hungarian) which, due to their global modularity, mitigate inflectional
affixation to a much less complex system, thus preserving a more economically
robust single storage capacity based entirely on the frequency-based processing
area of the brain.[4],[5],[6] When this notion of modular-complexity is raised in
conjunction with a previously established parameter setting dealing with [+/-
Bare-Stem] languages, a new and powerful tool is fashioned allowing us to
better describe and explain child functional category/feature onsets within
divergent language groups. It is therefore argued that many of the
cross-linguistic asymmetries found in Early Child Inflectional Development
should be better thought of as reflecting how the innate Language Faculty
provides languages the selection of a single vs. a dual storage capacity.
Assumptions and Suppositions
We follow Chomsky's (1995) 'The Minimalist Program'
(MP) throughout and assume language has real structural antecedents to the
mind/brain--The I-language is a state of the mind/brain. We then assume there to be real physiological
connections between language, syntactic structure and relevant brain
processing. A 'theory-of-mind' must therefore interest us as we build upon any
language theory. Still, very little is known about how a brain bootstraps
itself and creates a mind, as there is little understanding of the brain/mind
relation. An isolative 'theory-of- brain' and its processing, however, is much
better understood and allows us to be a bit more precise. There is now strong
scientific evidence to suggest that innate architectural principles of the
brain process linguistic information in two fundamentally different ways, thus,
by extension, determining how lexical vs. functional features project into
syntactic structures. We likewise assume that this dual processing, as defined
and expressed (overtly/covertly) in 'syntactic trees' has real linguistic
relevancy and is constrained by certain legibility conditions (at PF/LF
interfaces). We further assume this relevancy captures a natural cut, or a
language divergence, as characterized by a dichotomy between semantic-based
language (pertaining to the VP) vs. syntactic-based
language (pertaining to the IP).
Following
the general framework as laid out in Chomsky 1995, along with crucial
assumptions as detailed in 'Distributed Morphology' (DM) (Halle and Marantz
1993) (viz., the notion that functional heads serve as the locus of lexical
insertion, with word formation occurring in the syntax as a result of the
syntactic combination of such heads, and, that due to maturation, functional
heads may go unspecified in the syntax) we assume this cut shows itself in the
lexicon as follows and may have a real brain-language physiological
correspondence to how a higher syntactic position (IP-dominated) versus a lower syntactic position (VP-dominated) respectively captures the overt
vs. covert checking of features:
The
V(erb) P(hrase) contains phono-semantic features. These features are
substantive in some way, and thus interpretable at each relevant interface.
Lexical knowledge associated with the VP is therefore said to be unavoidably
trivial and instinctive to a certain degree, as derived by a set of data-driven
'sound-meaning' relations
appropriated to the PF/LF interface. Features of the VP are labeled
+Interp(retable) and, as a rule, do not require the movement of its head into a
higher functional projection. (DM labels such features as l-morphemes
(lexical): they are idiomatic and correspond to concrete categories of
Verb/Noun/Adjective).
The
I(nflectional) P(hrase) contains features that are not substantive in some way
and are therefore -Interp at either phonological or semantic interface.
Functional knowledge associated with the IP is therefore said to be
non-trivial, as derived by a set of rule-based relations which must then be 'checked-off' at the
PF/LF interface. Whenever the typology of a language forces -Interp features to
be checked in the overt syntax, this forces the features to project in the
morphology of the language. Whenever such features can go unchecked in the
overt syntax, the choice between overt vs. covert expression in the language
depends on that language's specific morphological parameterizations. (See §35
Typology). These formal features represent for the most part what drives
language variation. The reasoning for their existence in language remains
somewhat of a curiosity (it may be that such non-substantive features
ultimately drive the unique 'displacement property' of human language--in the
very general sense that functional checking motivates movement up the syntactic
tree) (DM labels such features as f-morphemes (functional): they are
non-idiomatic and rely on vocabulary selection).
Suppose
that the VP is exclusively pinned to the sensori-motor component of the brain,
the more primitive part of the brain that controls cognitive motor-skill,
memory and lower-level associative learning. In this sense, the VP presides as
the lexical category (par excellence)
alongside semantic-based [+Interpretable] features. Lexical categories exist prior to any computational numeration.
Suppose,
in addition, that the IP is rather pinned to areas of the brain which house
more abstract levels of thought (perhaps exclusively relating to the
left/frontal lobe region of the brain). Functional categories are the result of the combination of a lexical item
and a functional/inflectional feature (a numeration).
Suppose
further that classic processing distinctions between Derivational vs. Inflectional morphologies may be fuller understood in light of this dichotomy, i.e.,
that derivations ultimately trace their origins back to interpretable features
internal to the lexicon (l-morpheme), and, conversely, that Inflections are
nothing more than 'morpho-phonetic fillers' (expletive in nature), the remnants
of some computational operation of a broader syntactic scope (f-morpheme). It
is this latter observation inflection that will interest us in this paper. More than any other single
linguistic property, it is the nature and projection of inflection that gives a
language its typology--languages differ in inflectional systems. It is suggested
in this paper that the brain may house two separate language storage capacities
(perhaps in some way paralleling PF vs. LF representational systems) which
involve a parameter-setting, reflecting to some degree how a language selects
to show these fillers: a language may opt for fillers as affixes, disjoint from the lexical stem, or opt to incorporate
the fillers somehow as part of the stem. (In generic ways, the former entails
the operation Move, while the
latter entails the operation Merge.
In more concrete ways, the former operation Move may force an entire lexical item to overtly raise with
an affix, as seen in so called pied-piping, since a formal affix unattached to its stem would crash at PF).
Expanding on this argument, a dual-typology of Semantic transparency vs. Grammaticization-based languages is suggested, termed herein as a
'Modular-simple' vs. 'Modular-complex' parameter. The parameter reduces to the
selection of how a given language stores and projects such vacuous filler
material. Nothing hinges on this last supposition however: the dichotomy could
be upheld irrespective of whether or not such a dual storage capacity is
ultimately correct. Future developmental research will surely look toward MEG,
fMRI and PET scans to ultimately replace models of syntactic tree diagramming.
Only through better brain-to-language modeling will we eventually transform
language theories into biological certainties.
Introduction
It is now well documented that English children pass
through a (gradual) developmental stage in which they comprehensively fail to
project functional categories and features. At the same time, it is equally
well documented that children of other language groups, relative in age to
their English counterparts, may not proceed in a similar (gradual) fashion in
omitting the same formal categories and/or features. Thus, it would seem any
attempt to tether formal functional deletion to a more general cognitive
deficit, as based on a biologically-driven maturational theory of language
development, would run into several difficulties.
It
is argued in this paper that a unifying heuristic procedure which incorporates
a two-prong analysis of (i) Feature Complexity and (ii) Inflectional Paradigm
Complexity indeed maintains, as the working null hypothesis, a
biologically based maturational account and may help determine the
eventualities of a language's development, as attested in child language
acquisition. The heuristics come to detail a 'Converging Theories Hypothesis'
of sorts which attempts to describe language acquisition along the lines as
being both 'Discontinuous' in nature to that of the adult target language
(regarding top-down paradigmatic/structure analogy, thus saving some elements
of a maturational account), and at the same time 'Continuous' (regarding
type-token frequency learning which is described as a bottom-up cognitive
universal).
The
'Dual Mechanism Model' is then advanced as being best positioned to account for
the attested child language asymmetries found amongst the diverging language
groups discussed. Therefore, it is to be maintained that only insofar as the
Dual Mechanism Model is operative can we then postulate for a maturational
theory of language development.
[0] This paper
constitutes the first segment of 'Twin Working Papers'[7] and is more-or-less a personal exercise in formulating my own ideas on a Research Statement, the purpose of which is exploratory in nature and
mainly designed as a general means of roughly expressing my own thoughts and
understanding in the area of developmental language research. Due to the
'Working' nature of the notes herein, it will appear at times that ideas are
disjoint and surface at will. Having said this, it is my intention that the
framework evolve. The notes come to be centered on a driving notion termed
'Converging Theories', a hypothesis that firmly attempts to pair the divergent cross-linguistic
language data--attested in the differing language groups which show rich vs.
impoverished inflectional morphology--to that of a current unifying hypothesis
termed the 'Dual Mechanism Model' (Marcus et al. 1994, Pinker 1999, Clahsen
1999).
[1] It is now well
documented that English children pass through a (gradual) developmental stage
in which they completely omit functional [categories] and {features}such as
[CP, IP, DP] and {T(ense), AGR(eement) CA(se)}. Following the developments of
research models over two decades, as advanced in Felix (1984), Borer &
Wexler (1987), Guilfoyle & Noonan (1988), Radford (1990), Wexler (1994),
Hyams (1996), and Radford & Galasso (1998), there is today strong,
surmounting evidence to support some kind of Discontinuity (or, for a lack of a better term, some
'non-adult-like' conceptual linguistic formation) between the English speaking
child and adult, at least with regards to the aforementioned projections of
functional categories and/or their features. (See §21 for some data).
[2] After the
attested 'No Functional Categories' stage, children then seem to pass through a
slightly more developed (albeit non-target) stage in which they confuse much of
the functional grammar they have acquired. For example, it is not uncommon for
English speaking children to go through an early stage of development in which
they over-regularize a Gender feature, whereby the pronoun He is used for both males and females alike (CHILDES,
Brown files: 13). In addition to a gender pronoun feature non-specificity, a
child might confuse the 1/2nd person feature spell-outs of the pronoun I for You
and You for I, or may simply generalize the 3rd person possessor
features for possessive {'s} (Tom's)
onto the first and second person possessor (my's, your's) (Chiat 1982).
[3] In addition to
some of the feature confusion or non-specificity as mentioned above, the most
salient fact about child language is the systematic 'omission' of functional
material--a 'No Functional Category' stage--both in the forms of the functional
categories themselves, as well as with the associative parameters that maintain
such feature specificity (Spec-Head relations in higher-order functional
phrases).
[4] Notwithstanding
such apparent data which seemingly call for Discontinuity between child and adult grammar, a split has emerged
nevertheless amongst those developmental linguists (i) who espouse for an
initial stage of child syntax which begins in complete absence
of functional material (a Non-Functional/Inflectional stage as suggested in
Radford 1990/Radford & Galasso 1998) contra those (ii) who espouse for an initial stage which
begins with partial absence of
functional material (an O(ptional) I(nfinitive) stage as suggested by Wexler
1994).
[5] Proponents calling
for such Continuity tend to cite
not only English as one potential confirmation source (leading to the
aforementioned rift between Radford vs. Wexler), but cite the early emergence
of functional categories in other language groups, thus complicating Radford's
general claim for an initial No-Functional stage-1. New criteria can be
established in order to make the debates more precise. Questions into whether
or not a language's inflectional system is sufficiently rich to spawn very
early MLU onsets of affix morphology enter into the equation. This then
naturally leads to question regarding whether or not the early presence of
syntactic movement is linked to the checking of functional material (Chomsky
1995). One might ask whether the given language manifests a kind of deviant
inflectional usage (as attested by abnormal Aphasia/Specific Language Impairment
studies)--many such errors in certain language types essentially amount to
errors with wrong inflectional usage of 'commission' as opposed to any complete
inflectional 'omission' (in defiance of the discontinuity theory as mentioned
above). (We'll consider these each in turn in §11 below). Hence, the two
differing hypotheses, Discontinuity vs. Continuity, could be said to converge
roughly at the cross-roads of morphological typology: namely, it has been
suggested that when a language has a relatively rich inflection [+INFL], that
language will seemingly exhibit the early projection of functional
categories/features (as attested by child language studies of the relevant
language). However, when a language does not have a sufficiently rich
inflection [-INFL], that language will exhibit a somewhat delayed projection of
functional categories/features (a delay that has been cited as providing
general evidence for maturational based hypotheses). It is in this general
sense that language morphological typology is said to drive (top-down) the
nature of early child syntactic projection (in contrast to, say, a biologically
determined maturational process). Put another way, (i) it is first a priori knowledge of morpho-phonology that triggers the
appropriation of syntax, (ii) the syntax, in turn, then seeks out both the choice
of words and the nature of the
paradigm.[8]
[6] Hence,
following the 'Dual Mechanism Model' (DMM), children 'know' that Inflected
forms are not lexical since such
forms are conceptualized and generated in a separate processing modular. The
DMM maintains that a clean separation takes place between the lexical stem and the affix--a stem is 'meaning based' and thus housed in the temporal-lobe region
of the brain (Wernicke's area), while the affix is 'abstract' and thus housed
in the frontal-lobe region (Broca's area). The lexicon lists only lexical items
(stems) while functional items (affixes) are added at a second stage in the
numeration. (See §44 for diagram). The DMM credits the Brain/Mind with having
two fundamentally different cognitive modes of language processing--this dual
mechanism has recently been reported as reflecting inherent qualitative
distinctions found between (i) regular verb inflectional morphology (where
rule-based stem+affixes form a large
contingency) and (ii) irregular verb constructions (where full lexical forms
seem to be stored as associative chunks). The Language Faculty thus provides us with two ways of symbolic
representation.
[7] The overall
approach here is therefore 'top down' since there is no sense in the word
'Knowing' unless there is first 'Access'. (Though it is generally accepted in Feature
Theory (Chomsky 1995) that syntax is
driven 'bottom-up' by features which peculate up from the lexeme and enter into
a phrase configuration--presumably a spec-head configuration under a movement
analogy termed Merge--the proposed
model here differs only to the extend that we believe the initial 'Access' to
such features is 'top-down'). This has the flavor of saying that the debate
over continuity may be misplaced and badly spelled-out, and that the crucial
debate rather hinges on how the maturing, neurodevelopment of the brain
processes (or doesn't process) the 'accessed' paradigmatic/inflectional
material generated by the two diverging language groups. Having said this, I
follow Meisel (1994) and suggest that it is the full-fledge realization of the
INFL-paradigm that should be the real measure of competency, rather than any
language specific piece-meal affixation process by which morpho-particles affix
to stems, since the latter could always be explained away as misanalysis on the
child's part in ways that do not directly speak to a well formulized
inflectional paradigm (e.g., formulaic and/or lexical incorporation, lexical
redundancy rules, un-analyzable chunks, etc.).[9]
[8] Early
Inflection: Pro-Continuity. Contrary to what some might like in assuming
child-to-adult discontinuity--viz., that all languages start out with deficient
functional categories, say, owing to a general cognitive development of
functional categories--a good amount of data found in the literature calling for
a least some aspect of early functional competence include language groups such
as French (Pierce: 1989, 1992) and German (Clahsen: 1990, 1994).[10] Hence, those clinging to continuity can always claim
that at least one functional category is present from the very earliest MLU of
child speech (hence, quieting any clarion call for a strong discontinuity
hypothesis). For instance, Pierce shows that from the early age of 1;9-2;3
(Nathalie files) +Fin(ite) V(erbs) (hosting T/AGR) show movement via their
raising out of VP above NegP and into a functional IP, whereas -Fin(ite) Verbs
remain VP in-situ. (NegP is traditionally viewed as being an intermediate
phrase situated between the lower VP and the higher IP). Such findings
illustrate syntactic sensitivity on the part of the child by the fact that the
features in the lexeme drive syntactic movement for purposes of checking. (The
checking of formal -Interpretable features such as CA and AGR must ensue under
concord between a functional Spec-Head configuration).
[9]  
[10]
Clahsen
sites very early MLU German child sentences in which 90% of all Finite Verbs
show raising across negation into a higher host, verb-second position (here,
labeled FP (=Functional Phrase). Non-finite verbs in V2 position are
practically non-existent (op. cit: 13).
[11] SLI: Pro-Continuity. In addition to the question of the early
(vs. late) projection of inflectional, a second line of inquiry has begun to
look at Specific Language Impairment (SLI) as a means of teasing out just how
the morpho-syntax within divergent language groups is processed. For example,
one factor that arises out of morphological typology is the classification of a
matrix parameter that holds between [+/-INFL(ectional)] to [+/-Bare Stem]. For
instance, languages which have a rich inflection [+INFL] tend to also have a
[-Bare Verb Stem] parameter setting (Hyams 1987) and vice versa. Languages such as Italian, Spanish, among others
(with perhaps the most sever case being Hebrew) are non-stem-based languages in
the sense that the projection of a bare stem doesn't constitute a word. (In the
case of Hebrew, the radical root of a word can only be realized and projected
in conjunction with the root's morpho-phonological paradigm). Whereas it is
grammatical to project the bare verb stem speak in English (as in the infinitive usage I can
'speak' French), it is ungrammatical
to do so in Italian or Spanish *parl-, *habl-. What turns out to be interesting along these line of
inquiry is that with respect to both child language development and SLI,
[+INFL]=>[-Bare Stem] languages tend to show immediate and systematic
functional category/feature projection on the one hand and only SLI
inflectional error usage on the other. (See Grodzinsky (1990) for a detailed
look into Aphasic/SLI studies). For example, Italian SLI subjects never omit
inflections as that would violate word-structure properties. Italian SLI rather
typical involves inflectional errors having to do with misplaced Gender, Number
and Agreement--e.g.,
(i) *Quest-o
macchin-a
This
{masc} car {fem}
(This
car)
This
contrasts with both normally developing children as well as SLI children of the
matrix correlate [-INFL]=>[+Bare Stem] (i.e., English) who show a stage in
which functional categories/features are entirely missing. What this seems to
suggest is that before such language specific data can outright challenge the general
notion of discontinuity in child language acquisition, a more detailed analysis
of the language's morpho-syntactic processing must be obtained.
[12] Since French does
constitute as a [-INFL]=>[+Bare Stem] language, how do we square this with
the above observation made by Pierce that there is very early functional
projection? One would expect that since French constitutes a weakly inflected
though synthetically strong language, discontinuity theorists would assume an
initial stage in which inflection is not yet procured. (For further arguments
along this line of assumption, see §35 Inflections and Typology).
[13] Well, as it turns out,
there is some evidence to suggest that the picture is somewhat mixed and that
Pierce's French children (perhaps more so than Clahsen's German Children) do
have a stage (albeit short lived) during which they completely omit functional
categories--'a clarion call for discontinuity'. For instance, as Radford notes
(1995) and as pointed out by Atkinson (1995 p. 53)
...'if
we read [Pierce's] work carefully, we uncover the observation that in the very
first recording of Nathalie at age 1;9;3,..., Nathalie uses only nonfinite verb
forms, not finite verbs.'
Atkinson
notes: Radford goes on to cite Pierce's own observation of a very early
stage at which inflected forms are absent. Though it is unclear what Pierce
precisely means by 'uninflected forms', we can at least assume that she has
identified a stage in early French which shows no systematic finite/nonfinite
distinction.
[14] Similar conclusions could
be reached for German and Dutch (Wijnen, Bol 1993, p. 247, quoted in Atkinson)
'...there
are indications that during the first phase of grammatical development, Dutch
(and German) children only use nonfinite verbs...This implies that the 'Optional Infinitive' stage may
in fact not be the very first stage of syntactic speech and that a prior stage
exists which shows No Inflection--a Non-Inflectional stage (Italics belong to
Wijnen & Bol).
[15] When we turn to Spanish, however, we see a somewhat
more complex picture emerge. In light of the fact that Spanish is a [-Bare
stem] language (and thus must assign some affix material to its stem), other
syntactic considerations must be applied in determining whether or not there is
true functional awareness. For instance, Grinstead (2000) argues that there
exists a stage-one in early child Spanish that exclusively manifests null
subjects and that a correlation holds between this exclusive 'null-subject
stage' and the specific absence of particular affix agreement inflection having
to do with Tense and Number. In brief, Grinstead concludes that it is the
simultaneous onset of tense and number in the inflection paradigm that
ultimately triggers a particular aspect of UG pertaining to the CAse of overt
subjects. The particular onsets of such inflection are complicated and
potentially undermined by the possibility that simply because a young Spanish
child shows affix material (infinitive endings -ir, -ar, -er,) the child may simply be realizing these as parts of
the stem due to the [-Bare stem] parameter (i.e, they are rote-learned chunks).
If indeed this is the case, other factors must be considered in concluding that
functional categories have emerged. A similar conclusion could be reached regarding
early Italian verb+affix constructions. For instance, the underlying structure
of initial inflections (e.g., mett-o, mett-i, mett-e 'put-1sg/2sg/3sg'
(Guasti 1993/1994) may, in fact, be (semi)-rote-learned since there is no
syntactic possibility of a bare stem production. In addition to the bare-stem
factor, it may be that when such inflectional sequences are strong, with high
frequency attached to their production, the clusters may take on stem-like
qualities. (In this sense, weak clusters provide better material for
paradigmatic formation). The fact that subject-verb agreements are consistent
may rather speak to broader morpho-phonetic notions having to do with a kind of
grammaticalized lexical incorporation to the extent that verbs ending with -o
derive first person, etc.) It is
equally important to note that Wexler's OI-stage doesn't manifest in pro-drop
languages such as Italian or Spanish. One might ask why this is. It appears
that the lack of OIs in pro-drop languages can be traced to properties of the
AGR and INFL paradigm systems in the language. For instance, AGR in such pro-drop
languages doesn't have the array of -Interp(retable) features that otherwise
drive DP-subject projection and movement (via the overt checking of the -Interp
subject D-feature, presumably CAse). In this sense, it is understood that AGR
in pro-drop languages rather shows more of the semantic-based +Interp F-features (paralleling to a certain degree what one might expect of
VP/Thematic relations, under the postulation that Interpretable features are
semantic in scope and not part of the formal syntactic numeration). Hence, null
subjects of the Italian, Spanish variety are inextricably linked to the rich
morphologically agreement system. It is therefore not too unreasonable to
assume that aspects of AGR / INFL in pro-drop languages may sustain a certain
amount of subject incorporation (on a scale with subject-verb
grammaticalization). Such inherent inflections could be considered as having
semi-formulaic tendencies, or rather could be viewed as taking on
characteristics of incorporation, similar to how the derived two-morpheme word
teach-er was said to be processed
as an inherent chunk. English children never delete the derivational affix {-er} even when many such true inflectional affixes are
being dropped all around them. English children omit the infinitive 'to'
inflection early-on in stage-1 of their production precisely because it
constitutes a 'true affix', unincorporated marker (as opposed to other early
affix markers such as participle forms {en} and {ing} which seem to
behave as non-affixes).[11]
Such participle forms maintain 'strong-stem-like' properties and thus may share
some manner of incorporation. What is interesting about early Italian data is
the fact that AGR inflectional errors are almost non-existent (a hallmark of
rote-learned/lexical productions) despite the fact that other affix deletions
do manifest at the same stage in question. For instance, what one typically
finds at the early stages of Italian syntactic development are (inter alia) errors regarding Number on Noun stems (a possible
syntactic bare stem production). What this might suggest is that when the early
child data are examined carefully, distinctions regarding the type of
inflection can be made, leading to discussion of whether or not a production
should be considered as a true stem+affix inflectional production. Italian here
may constitute a periphery case, but when taken in conjunction with more
agglutinative type languages, the findings support the general idea that
inflections for [-bare stem] languages may to varying degrees be incorporating
the affix into the stem. If an inflectional affix is routed and incorporated
into the stem, than processing access of the affix has the same status as
access of the stem--with a kind of lexical incorporation that mimics pie-piping
strategies. It would seem that non-clitic, true rule formations of inflectional
morphology would not trigger such strategies. In brief, developmental studies
show that when one has to use inflection on every form [-Bare-stem parameter],
children at early syntactic stages of development seem to project only one
inflected form for each word and only produce that inflected form (as the
default). This default is presumed to be based on frequency. For instance, it
has been reported that children may (i) mark the most salient affix, say number
on nouns, (ii) but then still confuse how to properly project number on each
noun type for e.g., gender and case. It is suggested herein that the former
affix process (i) should be thought of as a kind of lexical incorporation,
showing no true rule process, with the latter paradigm process (ii) being
viewed as constituting a true rule-driven process.
[16] Retuning to general
questions of theory
Returning
then to general questions of theory, Chomsky (1999) suggests that there is good
reason to posit a set of universal features along with principles that make up
the Language Faculty. The problem facing the child may be how to build-up
(bottom-up) such universal features into a lexicon (see fn. 8). If indeed a
bottom-up assumption underpinning the processes of lexical construction is
correct (i.e., that the knowledge of morpho-phonology precedes and triggers
syntax, much in the spirit of Distributional Morphology, or the Lexical
Learning Hypothesis), then there is no reason to suppose that the assembling of
features does not follow an incremental process, potentially governed by
specific maturation of cognitive complexity. In other words, some features might
be acquired before others based on their internal conceptual complexity. For
instance, we might hypothesize that the internal complexity of the features [PER(son)]
might be more complex than the feature [DEF(initeness)] since DEF may contain
some amount of cognitive relevance at LF). (This range of complexity can have
large consequences for overt checking. For example, under Guasti and Rizzi's
(2001) model of spell-out, it is assumed that differences between overt vs.
covert checking directly corresponds to where in the position of the syntactic
tree a phrase projects. Those lower positions which are dominated by the VP may
include only +Interpretable features, and so may survive without forcing overt
movement to a higher projection. Higher positions dominated by IP conversely
force such overt movement for the required checking of functional
-Interpretable features.)[12]
Hence, the agreement of PER as well as the agreement of structural CA might
burden an otherwise primitive computational capacity for a young child at our
stage-1 of language development. However, this can't be the whole story since
some language groups manifest very early functional categories/features in
child development. It seems the cognitive complexity of features must work in
tandem with the broader implications of morpho-syntactic typology subsumed
under the matrix [+/-INFL]=>[+/-Bare Verb stem]. More concretely, it goes
without saying that not many linguists would wish to posit features as
containing different saliency values from one language to another. Formal
features are part and parcel of a universal language faculty, a C(omputation)
built-up on the H(uman) L(anguage) cognitive template (sometimes labeled as CHL).
Hence, all properties of feature complexity must be in the first instance
universal. It is then in the second instance, where formal features overlap
onto [+/-INFL] language typology, that we can ultimately determine whether or
not the given language will exhibit early functional projections in child
language.
[17] As a follow up to §§15
and 16 above, one of the many things that remain a puzzle to my mind is the
following question: Why is it that early child English allows for [-FIN] bare
verb stems to occur in Wh-Questions (What he eat?)? This
structure has only been reported for Child English and, I am aware, has never
been attested in other cross-linguistic child studies. It begs the question:
What makes the English bare stem so special in this respect, how does it differ to other language infinitives (e.g., root infinitives),
and how does it function in the syntax? Of course, one way to react to such
anomalies is to simply reconsider it as a [+FIN] bare verb stem, with only the
phonological affix missing.[13]
If this is at all possible, then it begs a larger question: Can functional
material be stored and represented in two fundamentally different ways? It
would seem language typology demands it. Surely, the PF-overt vs. LF-covert
movement analogy captures actually this. So, we may go on to assume that such
an 'affix-less' verb nevertheless projects inflectional material (T/AGR), at
least in light of the fact that there is nominative subject case agreement (He). One means to create a dialogue about the difference is to set up a heuristic procedure. The idea being if
we can somehow capture the properties behind English bare stems, we might be
better able to understand the overall syntax of (Child) English and throw some
light onto how English morphology fundamentally differs to other language
groups, at least in this one small respect.
[18] The two-point heuristic
procedure takes the following shape (inquiring into continuity between the
child and adult grammars):
Question
#1: Complexity of Features:
Q: Is there Continuity of Features?
If yes, see question #2. (We take this to mean that
T/AGR features project from the very earliest MLU).
If no, then a Discontinuity model is appropriated.*
* (Since English is a [+Bare Stem]
Language, it can simply exhibit bare verbs stripped of its formal features.
Nothing hinges on the fact that that it exists within a
Wh-question (an otherwise functional projection). What then must be looked at
is the pending nature of the Wh-Question (noting the absence of an Auxiliary)
not the bare verb, as Wh-operators equally can be expressed at PF without
exhibiting the complete range of formal features attributive to CP. I
understand the assessment fails to deal with optional projections).
[19] Typically, the notion of
+/-Interp(retable) features comes into play in helping to account for the
asymmetric chronological onsets of the relevant features and functional
projections. It is suggested that [+Interp] features provide semantic material
at LF interface while [-Interp] features must be functionally checked and
erased at LF (Chomsky 1995). In line with the arguments in this paper, it could
also be suggested that the two types of features likewise get processed and
stored in two different regions of the brain--whereby [+Interp] takes on
'strong-stem' properties and [-Interp] takes on 'weak-stem' properties (See §24
below regarding +/-Interp features in child language acquisition.)
[20] Question
#2: Complexity of Paradigm:
Q:
Is there Continuity of the Inflectional Paradigm?
If yes, morpho-syntactic typology must be considered, triggering
the
Dual Mechanism Model as a possible means of accounting for
the
continuity. (We take it here that some amount of feature
projection
may in all actuality be governed by phonological
constraints
on the language, such as cliticization, lexical
incorporation,
etc.)
If no, Then a discontinuity model is appropriated.
In
sum, we take it that Discontinuity is the Null Hypothesis, and that any
evidence to the contrary must be reconsidered in relation to that language's
morpho-syntactic typology. The exact role of the typology here will be made
clear below.
[21] Some Data
Evidence
for a Discontinuity model is striking ('negative' to Question #1 §18). For
instance, Radford and Galasso (1998), Galasso (1999, 2003b) Radford (1999,
2000) provide English data showing that children enter into a 'No Agreement' /
'No Inflection' initial stage-one of acquisition during which they completely
omit functional categories and [-Interp] complex features.
[22] Stage-1: 'No
AGReement-No INFLection' (Radford & Galasso 1998)
Possessives:
That Mommy car. Me dolly. No baby bike. Him name.
Have
me shoe. *Iwant me
bottle. It me.
Question: Where
Daddy car? This you pen? What him doing?
Declarative: Baby
have bottle. Car go. Me wet. Me playing. Him dead
*(Iwant examples
are analyzed as formulaic chunking,
since no other supportive material providing for a functional analysis of
nominative case is found in the relevant stage).
[23] Stage-2: 'OPtional
AGRement -INFLection'*
Possessives:
That's Mommy's car. My dolly. Baby's bike. His name.
Question: Where's
Daddy's car? This is your pen? What (is) he doing?
Declarative: Baby
has bottle. Car goes. I'm wet. I'm playing. He's dead.
*(The OI stage (as suggested by Wexler 1994) would
simultaneously incorporate both data sets as described in his initial Optional
Infinitive stage-1). Radford & Galasso make a clear demarcation between the
two stages, with the complete absence of any optional functional projections
for their stage-1. For complete data/analyses, see Galasso 2003c).
[24] Overall, children in this
initial stage-one of syntactic development are forced into projecting very
limited structure. For instance, (and this is by no means an exhaustive list):
(i)
Possessive projections, which rely on an AGReement relation with a nominal
INFL, must default to an objective case (e.g. my to me);
(ii)
Verb projections are limited to VPs without INFLection (hence auxiliary-less
question and declarative bare verb stems) (e.g. What him doing?,
Car go.);
(iii)
Subjects, which rely on an AGReement with a verbal INFL, must default
to having an objective case (e.g., Me wet). Consider the syntactic structures
below pairing the two data sets, with stage-one showing no inflectional
phrase (IP) agreement.
[25] Structure: Stage-One /
-AGR Structure:
Stage-Two /+AGR
(i) Possessive: * [IP
Mummy [I {-agr}-ø] car] [IP
Mummy [I {+agr}'s] car]
[IP Me [I {-agr}] dolly] [IP
My [I {+agr}] dolly]
(ii)
Case: [IP Him [I {-agr}] dead] [IP
He [I {+agr}'s] dead]
[IP Me [I {-agr}] wet] [IP
I [I {+agr} 'm] wet]
(iii)
Verb: [IP Baby [I {-agr} have]]... [IP
Baby [I {+agr}has]]...
[IP Car [I {-agr}go -ø]] [IP
Car [I {+agr} go-es]]
*(Though Radford and Galasso do label their stage-one
structures as IP {-agr} in the 1998 paper, this is mostly notational: see in-note
in §26 below).
[26] Similar findings are born
out and widely attested in the literature and are consistent with the general
notion that language acquisition involves some sort of incremental
feature-building (Radford 2000)--viz.,
the notion that if language does proceed in an incremental way, then it should
be of little surprise that the more robust and primitive aspects of a language
should come on-line before more abstract aspects of language--specifically,
default {-agr} feature projections attributed to the VP (by default) come
on-line before {+agr} projections attributed to the IP. (In-note: Though Radford and Galasso do label their stage-one
structures as IP {-agr} in the 1998 paper, this is mostly notational: they are
clear in stating that this in no way should undermine the fact that we are
indeed dealing with a lexical stage-one, with IP remaining Non-specified {¯}
(and for all intents and purposes, not projecting). Galasso (2003) describes
such early stage-one structures as reduced to simple lexical VPs and NPs). This
gives us the flavor of saying that a maturational scheduling is behind the chronological ordering of features (much
in the spirit of the Brown studies (1973) which sought to show a time-line of
affix morpheme development--moving from potentially viable semantic-based
participle forms {en}, {ing} through to true rule-based inflectional forms 3PSg
{s}, Possessive {s}, Past Tense {ed}. Where the opinions of the cited authors
§§1,3 tend to diverge, however, is in how to appropriately and accurately
describe such apparent lack of child linguistic knowledge. Given this
divergence, arguments spring up as to whether or not there is really any claim
for discontinuity at all (as based on the research paradigm on offer (Chomsky
1995, 1999)). One might think that the very fact that the child doesn't
produce/generate target 'adult-like' grammar at the initial stage of syntax
should be enough in of itself to say that discontinuity is an accurate
depiction of child language development.
[27] Well, some of us take
maturation more seriously than others. For the sake of concreteness, let's
spell this out. The 'strong maturational' theorist believes that there is
indisputable evidence for some kind of a biologically determined stage during
which functional categories, along with their class of functional words,
parameter settings and formal [-Interp] features, are all together absent in the
child's grammar. In these terms, 'strong maturation' equates to
'discontinuity'. The 'weak maturational' theorist might be more prone to skirt
such biological issues and stake their arguments around interpretations of the
theory. For instance, one way around the strong maturational/discontinuity
account would be to say that all formal categories/features are available to
the child from the very beginning,[14] the apparent discontinuity is then reduced to the
mere phonological spell-out of yet un-set parameter settings of categories
and/or un-specification of features.
[28] Hence, there are two
schools-of-thought of how such omissions of structure should be explained:
(i)
Full Competence =>
(weak maturation-continuity)
(ii)
Gradual Competence => (strong
maturation-discontinuity)
Full
Competency in this respect would include any developmental model which credits
the very young child with at least knowing the functional projection
notwithstanding the fact that the features of the projections can go unspecified
or be phonologically null (cf. Wexler's initial OI-stage 1994).
Gradual
Competency in this respect would include any developmental model which holds
off crediting the very young child with knowing any functional projection that
doesn't at least make itself phonological present in the form of functional
categorical words (Case/Pronouns, Auxiliaries) (cf. Radford & Galasso's
initial No-INFL stage 1998).
[29] Full competence
hypotheses state that all functional categories/features are present in the
child's linguistic system (this equates to a child-to-adult continuity). The
child's otherwise non-target grammar is thus the result of un-specification of
features that are nonetheless present in the child's phrase structure. In other
words, the child's otherwise lexical non-functional stage-1 of grammatical
development is thought of as maintaining the full-fledge IP>VP phrase
structure for typical declarative sentences, non-specification of features
notwithstanding, hence, the early German and French data cited above. In
English however, the child may not spell-out the Phonological Form of
articulation (at PF) of such features--for instance, the dual
AGR(eement)/T(ense) feature (which triggers the inflectional affix {-s} for
3person/singular/present) on the main finite verb goes un-specified and
therefore doesn't project. In this sense, a non-inflected bare verb stem
surfaces as the default: e.g., (The) baby sleep. What this assumption basically claims is that a child
may in fact be producing functional (affix) material all the while despite the
fact that such material is phonologically silent (following assumptions laid
out in Halle and Marantz 1993). Recall, such a treatment was suggested
regarding Bare verb stems which show subject nominative case in embedded
Wh-Questions §17. This very real possibility that functional
categories/features can be present though phonologically silent changes the
entire landscape of how maturational theories of language acquisition can be
put to the test. The very idea that +affix material can be present in a grammar without actually being spelled-out in the phonology requires developmental linguists to
revisit their discontinuity theories to the extend that newer models need to be
devised in order to establish whether or not a child at the earliest MLU stage
of development has functional grammar.
[30] A new condition for a
non-functional stage-1
The
argument for potential underspecification of features can be naturally expanded
to suggest that there are indeed two ways in which the brain can symbolically
represent morpho-syntactic material (The DMM)--either via an overt PF
channeling, or via a covert LF channeling. This will be later discussed in the
following sections on typology. In any event, what I am on about here is that
the two approaches (continuity vs. discontinuity) can converge to express a
larger idea: namely, children may have an alternative option of symbolically
representing functional material, but that this option is only relevant to the
+/-specification of affix material in general. In other words, we have now
conditioned any strong maturational account and relegated it to a stage that
describes the complete absence of functional material, but only insofar as it
is typically expressed in whole words (such as the Pronouns (case) AUXiliaries
(movement), etc.), and not affix and/or clitic constructs . Given a child now
has a parameter option of projection affix material in two ways, any attempt to
define a non-functional stage solely based on the absence of affix material
without looking into other paradigms has become considerable weakened. (If
anything, the option speaks to a pre-parameterization stage, which, by the way, would also support a strong
maturational hypothesis). Having leveled this new condition for our
non-functional stage-one, it must be said that Radford & Galasso's Lexical
stage-1 remains upheld, albeit now not by the fact that affix inflections are
absent (as their absence at PF/performance may not provide evidence for the
absence at LF/competence), but rather the no-functional stage remains upheld
rather due to the lack of other functional material such as CAse and AUX. as
attested in the data. Consider the two analyses of the verb's inflectional
material below (with §31 showing a common analysis).
[31] Full Competence
Phrase: Features spell-out for target grammar
[32] Full Competence
Phrase: Features are present but un-specified:
(Bare
verb stem by default)
[33] Gradual Competence
Phrase: Features not present
(Bare
verb stem by default)
*
(The trees above show AGR working in
tandem with T. It is in this sense that the new condition as expressed in [§30]
holds regarding affixes (in this case, the Agr/T-affix). It is rather the
relation of AGR/CAse that now becomes central in identifying a no-functional
stage. Recall our data in §21: there are no attested data of productive
Nominative Case. It is assumed under Schütze & Wexler's (1996) model that
the T/AGR work together, though see Galasso 1999 (p. 94-5) for a different
treatment showing the affix {-s} exclusively to mark Tense, whereas the full
agreement paradigm throughout goes unmarked [-ø] due to the nature of an
invisible agreement assigning mechanism in English)
[34] Regarding the Gradual
Development Hypothesis, the main idea behind the child's deficient grammar is
based on the complete absence of formal [Agr] / [-Interp] features and the
subsequent lack of functional categories IP/(CP). [Agr] / [-Interp] features
are those formal features such as CAse, PERson, Tense and other AGReement
relations which are considered to contribute no substantive semantic material
toward the overall computational system (the locus of Logical Form).
[35] Conclusion:
Inflections and Typology
'Modular-complex'(English,
Italian) vs. 'Modular-simple'(Chinese, Hungarian)
Let's turn to our closing remarking on typology.
Languages differ in whether or not they are analytic, agglutinative, or synthetic. A
finer-grained treatment of this classic typology, however, shows that while the
first two types maintain a rather modular-simple representation of functional,
inflectional material, the latter may show a modular-complex representation. In
this sense, inflection is tied to typology. In this final section, we make
explicit what we mean by this modular parameter.
[36] In addition to the
classic typology stated above, past typological studies have shown (e.g.,
Hawkins, 1986; Comrie, 1987) that the three language types actually can
collapse under a dual-typology based on semantic vs. syntactic/grammatical
structure of the language. More concretely, a scalar model showing a continuum
from syntactic to semantic structure can be devised to help define the way a
given language works as a communicative system. The continuum demonstrates the
competing elements a language faces--namely, how does a language balance the
needs to communicate effectively (semantic-based)
with the needs to communicate efficiently (syntactic/grammatical-based).
Modular-Simple Modular-complex
- INFL
Chinese Hungarian Hebrew English Italian Latin +/- INFL
{----------------|---------------
--|------------------|----------------}
effective/semantic syntactic/efficient
[+
Lexical Incorporation]
[- Lexical incorporation]
The
former deals with semantic properties of a language since it involves the
content of speech (per se), while
the latter involves crucial issues of syntax, since it is syntax that allows
the language system to evolve from complex to simple, a move in
keeping with all biological systems: (the need to economize).
[37] The Proposal
We believe this dual-typology of language, as based
upon transparency of semantics vs. syntax (termed modular-simple vs. modular-complex), more-or-less reflects the
two fundamental ways in which the human brain is constrained in the
structuring, storing and projecting of linguistic material (The Dual Mechanism
Model). Similar characteristics of this proposal have been advanced in the
literature (regarding verb movement type) which suggests that overt subject
languages (such as English, French) use 'adjoined-affix' morphology as opposed
to 'head/stem-affix' morphology as seen in covert subject languages (such as
Spanish, Italian).
We
take it that semantic transparent (modular-simple) language types, which seek
to preserve the optimal level of meaning in language, ultimately employ more of
the temporal-lobe regions of the brain in constructing their grammars.
Modular-simply language types thus organize grammatical relations as defined by
thematic/semantic roles. This leads such languages toward two extreme ends of
the continuum--either they show pervasive inflectional marking (based on a
strict one-to-one-morpho-syntactic mapping onto semantic roles), or they go
without inflection all together. The semantic continuum thus looks like the
following:
[38] The Semantic Continuum
(modular-simple):
(i)
Extreme Markers. This language
system is designed around extremely high levels of lexically embedded
morpho-syntactic markers, dealing with a wide range of semantic/grammatical
relations--e.g., topic, case, temporal, locative, variable word order, etc.--agglutinative
languages follow this course of
design...
....or,
(ii)
No Markers. This
language system is designed around an almost complete absence of such markers--analytic languages like Mandarin Chinese. Both language types
can be similarly characterized by their high levels of lexical incorporation of
such markers--'a temporal-lobe design'.
Conversely,
we take it that syntactic and thus grammaticization-based languages seek to
preserve efficiency in ways that collapse semantic roles in a variety of way
(prone to complexity). (This 'complex-to-simple' continuum can be seen in
diachronic language change, respectively, from Latin to French, from Sanskrit
to Hindi, from Old English to Modern English, etc.). The syntactic continuum
looks like the following:
[39] The Syntactic
Continuum (Modular-complex)
(i)
Rich Inflection. This
language system is designed around a stronger paradigm of inflections, though
such inflections are minimized and semantically deflated since they no longer
have real antecedents to semantic roles--inflectional languages like Spanish, Italian...
...or,
(ii)
Impoverished Inflection. This language system is design around a weaker
paradigm of inflections--inflectional languages
like English, French.
[40] Modular-Complex. It may be that English children
initially assume their target language to be simple, or at least paradigm
consistent (the default assumption). Accordingly, children in their initial
stages of syntactic development, may wrongly assume (and thus misanalyze) that
many of the 'slight' imperfections in their language are in fact perfections.
In other words, children may be perfect language learners in the sense that
they are perfectionist who seek perfection in the imperfect input they receive (Radford 2000). This brings up one aspect of
complexity, the competing nature of syntax over semantics. The fact that
language acquisition involves the incremental construction of features from
simple to complex (from +Interpretable/semantic to -Interpretable/syntactic),
does suggests that such mapping is correlated to (maturational) brain
development. The incremental nature of syntactic development begins with the
VP/Thematic structure (reported to belonging to the more primitive,
temporal-lobe region of the brain), and advances outward to the formal phrase
projections of IP/CP (belonging to the frontal-lobe).
[41] Consider the fact that,
initially, young English children wrongly analyze irregular verbs as (non-past)
bare verb stems. Hence, such over-regularizations as wented, boughted,
thoughted should not be considered as
double past markings. The fact that the early treatment of irregulars doesn't
encode for tense suggest that the child first stores the irregular verb as a
non-modular strong-stem. (Hence, inflectional over-regularization in Early
Child English (Marcus et al. 1992) may be the result of a child wrongly
assuming a 'modular-simple' setting over a 'complex' setting.) Young English
children generate a number of such syntactic/inflectional errors early on in
their development, all of which point to this mis-guided parameter setting:
e.g., double tense markers as in Aux constructions I didn't saw/had/played
the toy, suggesting that the Aux
lacks a tense marker, Case, Agreement and Tense deletions as in Him do it may be due to weak relevant paradigms, etc. Also reported above, children may optional
project either way and thus mix the two settings, as when they start out
speaking bare verb stems in otherwise functional projections (What he eat?).
These examples, when taken as a
whole, demonstrate, two main points: (i) the learning burden imposed by such
imperfect irregular formations, and (ii) that the processing of paradigmatic
functional material may be stored and projected in alternative ways (depending
on the cognitive maturational schedule of language development). This duality
is what is ultimately responsible for a two-stage Lexical vs. Functional
development of grammar. More specifically, the claim here suggests that when
proper functional material projects in the way of an inflectional affix, it
does so by way of a storage capacity that treats stems and affixes in an
entirely different manner, as the two elements, stem+affix, are stored in
entirely different parts of the brain. When the child's brain is not yet
prepared to handle such (frontal-lobe) activity, the linguistic formation may
fall back on the rather default handling of material indicative of more semantically-based
structuring (temporal-lobe). The proposal is that proper affixes are stored in
the frontal-lobe regions of the brain, unconnected to the stem, which is itself
stored in the temporal, motor-strip regions of the brain. Modula-complex languages,
however, must also adhere to an additional parameter which determines whether
or not the language is richly inflected (and thus [-Bare-stem], or weakly
inflected (and thus +Bare-stem). It is in fact this wide range of detachment of
stem and inflectional affix that procures the computational processes as
handled by the frontal lobe, otherwise, as with the other two typologies, a
single processing mechanism correlating to the temporal-lobe suffices. When
these two parameters are taken into account, a picture emerges as to how the
development of child functional grammar should manifest:
[42] (i) Modular-complex /
-INFL. These
languages (English, French) should demonstrate a initial stage-one of syntactic
development where functional inflections go un-projected, as attested in English/French
child language.
(ii)
Modular-complex / +INFL. These
languages (e.g., Spanish, Italian) should demonstrate an initial stage-one of
syntactic development where functional inflections project--at least partially
and at times presumably incorrect.
(iii)
Modular-simple / +INFL. These
languages are the agglutinative types with highly regular inflections
(Hungarian, Turkish, Russian, Japanese). The inflections are not only highly
regular but also correlate to a one-to-one correspondence in meaning (one morpheme,
one meaning). Consider the Turkish word odalarimdan ('from my rooms') where lar -im -dan are morphemes expressing one distinct category. Such
corresponding could be similarly viewed as Derivational morphology in a certain
respect since each added morpheme can change the stem meaning. Young children
speaking these languages do not typically pass through a non-inflectional
stage, since the inflections are housed and encoded within the stem. In other
words, young children speaking Russian or Hungarian don't seem to follow the
traditional benchmarks or morphological development as compared to their
synthetic language counterparts. (A good illustration is the case of Japanese
post-positions and locative markers which tend to heavily rely on the
substantive/semantic properties related to the stem. Such markers cannot go
deleted in early Japanese syntax, unlike other non-substantive Japanese INFL
markers which do (nominative/accusative Case -wa, -ga, -o.)
(iv)
Modular-simple / -INFL. These languages are the pure analytical languages such
as Mandarin Chinese which tend to 'unpack' the little inflectional morphology
they have and established otherwise potential morphological markers as part and
parcel of the stem--e.g., the English paradigm of First Person, Subject, Plural
which is 'morphologically packed' in the pronoun we (and subsumes all markers) would be expressed in
Mandarin as three word boundaries: #[=one person] + #[=many of].
[43] Brain-to-language
processing and a maturational story for modular complex languages.
Regarding the brain, I feel that it eventually won't
take much to whip up a 'brain to language-processing' mapping analogy that
rivals the best of syntactic theories (pertaining to brain processing and
phrase structure). Insofar as we will eventually be able to tease apart other
non-linguistic processes that go on in the brain when language is generated, I
am confident a whole new approach to syntactic theory is soon to be on the
drawing board. I show optimism here because of the great strides that have been
made in neuroimaging techniques. At the moment, brain scans such as ERPs,
fMRI, PETs don't exclusively show language generation, but is rather mired in
myriad non-linguistic factors--side-effects that, if not teased apart from the
actual language stimuli, would also go into the equation confusing the target
language stimuli and observed brain area activity. What we would like is a
potential scan that represents the steps of pure language (without blurring
outside noise such as motor-skill processing for phonology, decision making,
criteria tasks such as word-to-semantic mappings, other engaged thinking, even
day-dreaming). The request is for a filtered 'language-task' ERP. It's a tall
order to fill. Recently new such scans have emerged, such as the MEG
(Magnetoencephalography). The MEG works like the ERP scan in that neural events
create the signal, an electrical current which flows down the dendrites of
specific neurons that are active in the brain during the language task. This
means that a strict one-to-one mapping may be available in representing the
actual steps as language unfolds. Thus far, early studies show that verb
processing indeed takes a dual-track approach:
(i)
The first quarter second: The
Temporal-lobe (TL) parts of the brain are active with the search of lexical
stems and irregular verbs. (As pointed out in the DMM, word stems and irregular
verbs are stored and retrieved in associative memory). We extend this
'low-level' processing to incorporate the Verb Phrase (VP) as well since both lexical
words and VPs would involve thematic/semantic relations Hence, with
this stage frozen as a 'snap-shot', we can theorize that children at the VP
stage-one of syntactic development would only show TL activity with regards to
MEG scans. (Wakefield and Wilcox (1995 p. 644), in support of Radford's (1990)
maturational theory, believe that the TL and the LFT are initially unconnected
in the first stages of language acquisition (Radford's VP stage-one). When set
in correlation to the DMM, we view this stage absence of overt
agreement/inflection and other functional material to be motivated by such
brain computation deficits. As stated above, the specific deficits here would
be due to a lack of early neurological myelination involved in linking the two
areas of the brain. Since the FTL is not yet on-line in stage-one of language
development, all generated language is seen as projecting from prosaic VP
structures at TL).
By extension, we suggest that the acquisition of
functional projections is triggered by the LFT being turned 'on' (analogous to
a parameter setting) thus triggering the acquisition of functional morphology.
In this sense, a two-prong conclusion can be reached stating: while (i) we firmly
believe that knowledge of morpho-phonology precedes and triggers syntax, (ii)
such knowledge comes to the child via the computational maturation of that part
of the brain that provides access to that specific knowledge in the first
place.
By
extension, we suggest children know that inflected forms are not lexical since
inflected forms are conceptualized and generated in a separate mode of
processing, disassociated from lexical stems. Such an analysis would go along
way in supporting the independent work carried out by Elman and Newport's
'Less-is-more Hypothesis' by providing a mechanism by which an account for the
'starting small' can be made. Hence, we assume children start out without rules
and paradigms.[15]
Only later are they said to construct their paradigms incrementally, one feature at a time, given the onset
of LFT activity. It may be however that such inflectional languages which start
out 'small' may otherwise use mechanisms available in other non-INFL languages
(though still provided by UG) to mark notions of T/AGR. (See Hyams (1996) for a
semantic treatments of otherwise null INFL markers.).
(ii)
A tenth of a second later: The
left/frontal-lobe (LFL) then becomes active with the pursuit of the regular
verb functional affix (as pointed out by the DMM, affixes are rule-based). We
extend this 'high-level' processing to incorporate the Inflectional Phrase (IP)
as well since both affix formations and IPs involve abstract/rule-based
relations. Hence, we would theorize that SLI subjects who show commission of
functional errors (as discussed in §11 and in contrast to children in the
'no-functional' stage who show 'omission' of errors) would show LFL activity
with regards to the MEG scans. Though word processing seems to be the order of
the day, phrase processing is following right behind and gaining interest. As
mentioned, if we can extend the lexical stem+affix split, as understood in the
DMM, to that of the qualitative nature of different phrase types (IP vs. VP),
then an even more robust theory of the DMM can be realized.
[44] Syntactic tree mapping
inflectional neuroimaging
Syntactic
Tree: Neuroimaging:
INFL
= [ø] when weak--covert movement of the verb stem into X.
INFL
= [affix] when strong--overt movement of the verb stem into X.
X
= storage capacity #2--rule-based
V
= storage capacity #1--associative
[45] Weak/Covert movement:
Modern English (single storage)
[46] Strong/Overt movement: Middle English
[47] Merge V to INFL/X:
[48] A Case of Strong Inflection:
South-Western English INFL Paradigm
It
seems that some varieties of English opt for a 'rule-based' storage capacity
via a parameter setting. In stark contrast to Standard English, consider the
rich inflectional paradigm for a variety of English spoken in South-Western
England (Cheshire 1989, discussed in Radford 1997 p. 79).
[49] Merge V to INFL/X:
[50] There may be a
maturational story behind all of this. How is it that some language types
split-off the family tree and began taking on higher doses of abstract
inflection? Perhaps 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' here in the sense that languages are (i) born from a
Saussurean 'form-to-meaning' iconic system, (ii) then evolve into complex,
less economical paradigmatic systems, (iii) only later to return to reduced
paradigmatic systems. (The latter two stages are witnessed here to the extent that
a shift has occurred from Middle English being strongly-inflected to Modern
English being weakly-inflected). If so, then some languages may be simply
lagging behind others on this evolutionary revolving door of
'simple-to-complex' inflectional typology. Of course, no one wants to claim
that the brains of speakers of 'modular-complex' languages have somehow
advanced over the others. The differences should rather be thought of as a
sort of compensatory flow-sheet in that the brain is equipped to handle info in
two fundamentally different ways--no one way is better than the other, there are
different pay-offs (differing advantages to disadvantage). For example, no one
wishes to claim that Chinese speakers have very little formal abstraction
ability because their language demonstrates very little in the way of
inflection. Rather, what should be said is that the language system itself has
come to a nice equilibrium of sorts between the amount of abstraction that
ought to be carried out (efficiency),
which may be otherwise provided by the context in any account, and the amount
of lexical storage required for communication without otherwise burdening the
storage capacity (effectiveness).
It is not clear, but Chinese may in fact require higher-levels of associative
memory due to its internal structure. (All this is speculation at best;
however, we can refer back to the footnote (6) on Newport's hunch that
associative storage capacity ultimately is responsible for the second capacity
of abstraction). Noting such differences between, say, Spanish (with high
amounts of inflection) and Chinese (with low to zero amounts of inflection), it
needs to be understood that both languages have representations of functional
categories (i.e., both have basically the same inflectional systems)--it is just
that Spanish uses words and morphemes to represent these categories (=LFT
storage), while Chinese does not. Instead, Chinese determines the presence of
functional items such as Comp, Tense, Agreement via lexical context (=TL
storage). Ultimately, it may be that the proposed parameterization leading to
the typology amounts to little more than the following...
'[T]here
is evidence that [the] languages have basically the same inflectional systems,
differing only in the way formal elements are accessed by the part of the
computational procedure that provides instructions to articulatory perceptual
organs. The mental computation seems otherwise identical, yielding indirect
effects of inflectional structure that are observable, even if the inflections
themselves are not heard in speech. That may well be the basis of language
variation, in large measure' (Chomsky 2000. p.120)
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