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The development of syntactic subjects in Portuguese-speaking children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Virginia Valian  and
Zena Eisenberg
Virginia Valian*
Affiliation:
Hunter College
Zena Eisenberg
Affiliation:
Hunter College
*
Department of Psychology, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA.
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Abstract

In order to separate competence and performance factors in acquisition of knowledge of syntactic subjects, we audiotaped and analysed the spontaneous speech of 20 Portuguese-speaking two-year-olds in natural conversation with Portuguese-speaking adults. We separated the children into three groups based on Mean Length of Utterance in Words: 1·5–1·99; 2·0–2·99; 3·0–4·99. Our cross-sectional data demonstrated that Portuguese-speaking children increased their use of subjects from 28% in the lowest-MLUW group to 57% in the highest-MLUW group. The children in the highest-MLUW group almost perfectly matched the adult speakers in the study on every measure. The increase in children's use of subjects was primarily due to an increase in the use of pronominal subjects. A comparison between Portuguese- and English-speaking children suggests that adult competence about the status of subjects is present at the onset of combinatorial speech, as shown by differential production of subjects. Each group also experiences performance limitations, as shown by the increase in subject use as development proceeds.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 103 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-24369), and in Part by a grant from The City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program. We thank Stephanie Aubry and Heliana Mello for discussion of earlier drafts, James Hoeffner for comments on memory development, and two anonymous readers for their helpful reviews. We thank the children, parents and day care centres whose participation made this study possible.

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