Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-rvbq7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T15:51:22.400Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The acquisition of Irish: a study of word order development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Tina Hickey
Tina Hickey*
Affiliation:
Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann
*
Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann, 31 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examines the development of word order patterns in Irish, a strict VSO language. It was found that the three children studied used subject-initial utterances considerably more frequently than adults in input, and that in both adult and child the elision of the verb ‘to be’ played a significant role. Another significant factor was found to be the different restrictions on main verbs and verbal nouns with regard to the subject: in neutral sentences the main verb always precedes the subject, while the verbal noun always follows it. The Bates & MacWhinney (1979). hypothesis that early verb initialization results from a tendency to place new information before given information was also investigated.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 1990 , pp. 17 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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.)

Footnotes

*

This paper is based on an extract from a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Reading, England. I would especially like to thank Michael Garman for his advice, as well as Paul Fletcher, Roger Wales, Eoghan Mac Aogáin, Dónal Ó Baoill and Diarmuid Ó Sé for their helpful comments. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the parents and children who participated in the study. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Child Language Seminar, University of Durham, 1986.

References

REFERENCES

Aksu-Koc, A. & Slobin, D. (1985). Acquisition of Turkish. In Slobin, D. (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Hillsdale NJ: ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic PressGoogle Scholar
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. (1979). A functionalist approach to the acquisition of grammar. In Ochs, E. and Schieffelin, B. (eds), Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic PressGoogle Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1973). Early syntactic development: a crosslinguistic study with special reference to Finnish. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Braine, M. (1963). The ontogeny of English phrase structure: the first phrase. Language 39. 1–14.Google Scholar
Braine, M. (1976). Children's first word combinations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 41. (no. 1). 1–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. Cambridge MA: Harvard University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R., Cazden, C. & Bellugi, U. (1969). The child's grammar from I to III. In Hill, J. P. (ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology, vol. II, pp. 28–73. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language 2. 1–19.Google Scholar
Burling, R. (1959). Language development of a Garo and English speaking child. Word 15. 45–68.Google Scholar
Chafe, W. (1976). Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects topics and points of view. In Li, C. (ed.), Subject and topic. New York: Academic PressGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Clancy, P. (1985). Acquisition of Japanese. In Slobin, D. (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Hillsdale NJ: ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1973). What's in a word? On the child's acquisition of semantics in his first language. In Moore, T. E. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic PressGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D., Fletcher, P. & Garman, M. (1982). The grammatical analysis of language disability: a procedure for assessment and remediation, second edition. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Ertel, S. (1977). Where do the subjects of sentences come from? In Rosenberg, S. (ed.), Sentence production: developments in research and theory. Hillsdale NJ: ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Fava, E. & Tirondola, G. (1977). Syntactic and pragmatic regularities in Italian child discourse: grammatical relations and word order. Unpublished manuscript. Institute of Glottologia, Pisa, Italy.Google Scholar
Fletcher, P. & Garman, M. (1987). Normal language development and language impairment: syntax and beyond. Paper given at the AILA conference, Lund.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. H. (ed.) (1966). Universals of language, second edition. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. & Zukow, P. (1978). Why do children say what they say when they say it? An experimental approach to the psychogenesis of presupposition. In Nelson, K. (ed.), Children's language. Vol. 1. New York: Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Hickey, T. (1987). The early acquisition of Irish: grammatical patterns and the role of formulas. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Reading, England.Google Scholar
Hockett, C. F. (1958). A course in modern linguistics. New York: MacmillanGoogle Scholar
Jesperson, D. (1922). Language, its nature, development and origin. London: Allen & UnwinGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, J. (1983). A VP in a VSO language? In Gazdar, G., Klein, E. & Pullum, G. (eds), Order, concord and constituency. Dordrecht: ForisGoogle Scholar
McKenna, A. & Wall, E. (1986). Our first language: acquisition of Irish. Dun Laoghaire: Glendale PressGoogle Scholar
MacMathiina, S. (1979). Prolegomena to a study of language acquisition in Irish. Teanga 1. 72–93.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. (1975). Semiotic extension. In Solso, R. L. (ed.), Information processing and cognition: the Loyola symposium. Hillsdale NJ: ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1974). How Hungarian children learn to speak. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1977). Starting points. Language 53. 152–68.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. & Bates, E. (1978). Sentential devices for conveying givenness and newness: a cross-cultural developmental study. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 17. 539–58.Google Scholar
Mathesius, V. (1929). Zur Satzperspektive im modernen Englisch. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen 155. 202–10.Google Scholar
Ó Dónaill, N. (1977). Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla. Baile Átha Cliath: Oifig an tSoláthairGoogle Scholar
Osgood, C. & Tanz, C. (1977). Will the real direct object in bitransitive sentences please stand up? In Juilland, A. (ed.), Linguistic studies offered to J. Greenberg on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Saratoga CA: Anima LibriGoogle Scholar
Ó Siadhail, M. (1973). Abairti freagartha agus míreanna freagartha sa nua-Ghaeilge. Ériú 24. 134–59.Google Scholar
Park, T.-Z. (1970). The acquisition of German syntax. Unpublished paper, Psychological Institute, University of Bern, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Radulovíc, L. (1975). Acquisition of language: studies of Dubrovnik children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Rodgon, M. (1976). Single word usage, cognitive development, and the beginnings of combinatorial speech. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. (1966). The acquisition of Russian as a native language. In Smith, F. and Miller, C. A. (eds), The genesis of language: a psycholinguistic approach. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. (1982). Universal and particular in the acquisition of language. In Wanner, E. and Gleitman, L. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Snow, C. (1978). The role of social interaction in language acquisition. Minnesota symposium on child development. Vol. 12. Hillsdale NJ: ErlbaumGoogle Scholar
Stenson, N. (1981). Studies in Irish syntax. Tubingen: NarrGoogle Scholar
Weist, R. (1986). Crosslinguistic perspective on cognitive development. In Schlecter, T. M. and Toglia, M. P. (eds), New directions in cognitive science. Norwood NJ: AblexGoogle Scholar