Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T06:48:34.627Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the development of null implicit objects in L1 English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Ana T. Pérez-Leroux ,
Mihaela Pirvulescu ,
Yves Roberge  and
Anny Castilla
Ana T. Pérez-Leroux
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Mihaela Pirvulescu
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Yves Roberge
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Anny Castilla
Affiliation:
State University of New York/Fredonia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores a defining property of implicit null object constructions, and how this property emerges during the L1 acquisition process. Implicit objects are non-referential and characterized by a strong semantic association between a null N in object position and the contents of the verb root. By means of an elicited production study, we examine children’s sensitivity to this association in terms of the typicality of implicit direct objects and of their use in a potentially contrastive context. Participants were 73 English-speaking children (between the ages of 2;09 and 5;08) and 20 adult controls. Our results show that children make a distinction between implicit objects with typical and atypical objects—even in scenarios where a previous use introduces a potential contrast—but at rates that differ from those of adults. This suggests an incomplete knowledge of the target properties of null objects and indicates that children use a referential null N until later in development, when the selectional link between V and the null object becomes entrenched and hyponymy with the verb root becomes the sole source of recoverability. We draw implications about the co-development of verb meaning and the null object construction.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article explore une propriété cruciale des constructions avec objet nul implicite et son émergence lors du processus d’acquisition de la L1. Les objets implicites sont non référentiels et caractérisés par une forte association sémantique entre un N nul dans la position d’objet et le contenu de la racine verbale. À l’aide d’une étude de production ellicitée, nous nous penchons sur la sensibilité qu’on les enfants à cette association en nous basant sur la typicalité des objets directs implicites et sur leur usage dans des contextes potentiellement contrastifs. 73 enfants anglophones (âgés de 2;09 à 5;08) et un groupe contrôle de 20 adultes anglophones ont participé à l’étude. Nos résultats indiquent que les enfants font la différence entre les objets implicites avec objet typique et atypique—même quand le scénario implique un contraste—mais à des taux différents de ceux des adultes. Ceci semble dévoiler une connaissance incomplète des propriétés des objets nuls de la langue cible et semble indiquer que les enfants utilisent un objet nul N référentiel dans le processus de développement jusqu’à ce que les propriétés sélectionnelles du verbe soient suffisamment enracinées pour qu’une relation hyponimique agisse comme seule source de récupérabilité. Enfin, nous explorons les conséquences de cette analyse pour le développement parallèle du sens verbal et de la construction à objet nul.

Keywords

implicit null objectsL1 acquisitionEnglishnon-referentialitycontrastive contextsobjets nuls implicitesacquisition L1anglaisnon-référentialitécontextes contrastifs
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 443 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, Shanley. 2000. A discourse-pragmatic explanation for argument representation in child Inuktitut. Linguistics 38:483–521.Google Scholar
Bloom, Paul. 1990. Subjectless sentences in child language. Linguistic Inquiry 21:491–504.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen, and Sybesma, Rint. 1998. On dummy objects and the transitivity of run. In Linguistics in the Netherlands 1998, ed. Bezooijen, Renée van and Kager, René, 81–93. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter. 1987. Null objects in universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 18:597–612. Cummins, Sarah and Roberge, Yves. 2005. A modular account of null objects in French. Syntax 8:44–64.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka F. and de Swart, Henriette. 2003. The semantics of incorporation: From argument structure to discourse transparency. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) Publications.Google Scholar
Gelman, Susan A. 2003. The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Giannakidou, Anastasia and Merchant, Jason. 1997. On the interpretation of null indefinite objects in Greek. Studies in Greek Linguistics 17:141–155.Google Scholar
Gillon, Brendan S. 2006. English relational words, context sensitivity, and implicit arguments. Ms., McGill University.Google Scholar
Gleitman, Lila R. 1990. The structural sources of verb meanings. Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics 1:3–55.Google Scholar
Gleitman, LilaR., Cassidy, Kimberly, Nappa, Rebecca, Papafragou, Anna, and Trueswell, John C.. 2005. Hard words. Language Learning and Development 1:23–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griiter, Theres, 2006. Object clitics and null objects in the acquisition of French. Doctoral dissertation, McGill University.Google Scholar
Guerriero, A.M. Sonia, Oshima-Takane, Yuriko, and Kuriyama, Yoko. 2006. The development of referential choice in English and Japanese: A discourse-pragmatic perspective. Journal of Child Language 33:823–857.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth and Jay Keyser, Samuel. 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In The view from building 20, ed. Hale, Kenneth and Keyser, Samuel Jay, 53–109. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth and Jay Keyser, Samuel. 2002. Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15:531–574.Google Scholar
Hyams, Nina. 1986. Language acqusition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingham, Richard. 1993. Input and learnability: Direct object omissibility in English. Language Acquisition 3:95–120.Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, Celia, Miiller, Natascha, Riemer, Beate, and Catherine Rigaut, 1997. The case of subject and object omissions in French and German. In Proceedings of the 21st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), 21: ed. Hughes, Elizabeth, Hughes, Mary, and Greenhill, Annabel, 331–342. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Kay, Deborah A. and Anglin, Jeremy M.. 1982. Overextension and underextension in the child’s expressive and receptive speech. Journal of Child Language 9:83–98.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knut and Lemoine, Kevin. 1996. Vers une grammaire des compléments zéro en français parlé. In Absence de marques et représentation de l’absence 1, ed. Chuquet, Jean and Frid, Marc, 279–309. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes.Google Scholar
Larjavaara, Meri. 2000. Présence ou absence de l’objet: Limites du possible en français contemporain. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica.Google Scholar
Larson, Martha. 2002. Baule SVCs: Two distinct varieties of missing objects. Paper presented at the Legon-Trondheim Linguistics Project Annual Colloquium University of Ghana, Legon.Google Scholar
Lau, Ellen, Phillips, Colin, and Poeppel, David. 2008. A cortical network for semantics: (De)constructing the N400. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9:920–933.Google Scholar
Leslie, Sarah-Jane. 2008. Generics: Cognition and acquisition. Philosophical Review 117:1–47.Google Scholar
Levin, Beth. 1999. Objecthood: An event structure perspective. In Proceedings o/CLS 35, ed. Billings, Sabrina J., Boyle, John P., and Griffith, Aaron M., 223–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 2000. Presumptive meaning: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Medina, Tamara Nicol. 2007. Learning which verbs allow object omission: Verb semantic selectivity and the implicit object construction. Doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Meints, Kerstin, Plunkett, Kim, and Harris, Paul L.. 1999. When does an ostrich become a bird? The role of typicality in early word comprehension. Developmental Psychology 35:1072–1078.Google Scholar
O’Grady, , William, , Yamashita, Yoshie, and Cho, Sookeun. 2008. Object drop in Japanese and Korean. Language Acquisition 15:58–68.Google Scholar
Panagiotidis, Phoevos. 2003. Empty nouns. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21:381–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, , Teresa, Ana, Pirvulescu, Mihaela, and Roberge, Yves. 2008. Null objects in child language: Syntax and the lexicon. Lingua 118:370–398.Google Scholar
Prasada, Sandeep and Dillingham, Elaine M.. 2006. Principled and statistical connections in common sense conception. Cognition 99:73–112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pylkkanen, Liina and McElree, Brian. 2007. An MEG study of silent meaning. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19:1905–1921.Google Scholar
Raposo, Eduardo. 1986. On the null object in European Portuguese. In Studies in Romance linguistics, ed. Jaeggli, Osvaldo and Silva-Corvalan, Carmen, 373–390. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Salomo, Dorothé, Lieven, Elena, and Tomasello, Michael. 2010. Young children’s sensitivity to new and given information when answering predicate-focus questions. Applied Psy-cholinguistics 31:101–115.Google Scholar
Serratrice, Ludovica. 2005. The role of discourse pragmatics in the acquisition of subjects in Italian. Applied Psycholinguistics 26:437–62.Google Scholar
Serratrice, Ludovica, Sorace, Antonella, and Paoli, Sandra. 2004. Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax-pragmatics interface: Subjects and objects in English-Italian bilingual and monolingual acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7:183–205.Google Scholar
Seston, Rebecca, Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick, Ma, Weiyi and Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy. 2009. Vacuuming with my mouth?: Children’s ability to comprehend novel extensions of familiar verbs. Cognitive Development 24:113–124.Google Scholar
Sigurõsson, , Halldór A., 2011. Conditions on argument drop. Linguistic Inquiry 42:267–304.Google Scholar
Southgate, Victoria and Meints, Kerstin. 2000. Typicality, naming and category membership in young children. Cognitive Linguistics 11:5–16.Google Scholar
Theakston, Anna, Lieven, Elena, Pine, Julian, and Rowland, Caroline. 2001. The role of performance limitations in the acquisition of verb-argument structures: An alternative account. Journal of Child Language 28:127–152.Google Scholar
Thomas, Andrew L. 1979. Ellipsis: The interplay of sentence structure and context. Lingua 47:43–68.Google Scholar
Valian, Virginia. 1991. Syntactic subjects in the early speech of American and Italian children. Cognition 40:21–81.Google Scholar
Valian, Virginia, Prasada, Sandeep, and Scarpa, Jodi. 2006. Direct object predictability: Effects on young children’s imitation of sentences. Journal of Child Language 33:247–269.Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1957. Verbs and times. Philosophical Review 56:143–160. [Reprinted in Zeno Vendler, 1967. Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.]Google Scholar
Wang, Qian, Lillo-Martin, Diane, Best, Catherine, and Levitt, Andrea. 1992. Null subject versus null object: Some evidence from the acquisition of Chinese and English. Language Acquisition 2:221–254.Google Scholar
Wexler, Kenneth, Gavarro, Anna, and Torrens, Vincent. 2004. Feature checking and object clitic omission in child Catalan. In Romance languages and linguistic theory 2002, ed. Bok-bennema, Reineke, Hollebrandse, Bart, Kampers-Mahne, Brigitte, and Sleeman, Petra, 253–268. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar