On the acquisition of complex predicates: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

There may be two approaches to diversifying the languages cited in child language acquisition research: a theoretical canon approach and a language-specific approach. The ‘theoretical canon’ approach recruits out-of-the-way languages into long-standing theoretical debates to either validate current assumptions using a new language and population, or utilize a feature of the new language as a wedge with which to separate two opposing theories (see Cutler, 1985, on this notion in psycholinguistics). For instance, passive constructions have been known to be produced late by English-speaking children at least since Brown (1973), but studies show that children learning K’iche’ (Pye & Poz, 1988), Zulu (Suzman, 1987), Sesotho (Demuth, 1990), and Inuktitut (Allen & Crago, 1996) produce them relatively early, implying that language-specific factors like formation and frequency in the ambient language must be at play, not anything inherent about passives. The theoretical canon approach is important for honing theories, but it risks a selfreferential circularity, by which the features of a handful of (spoken) languages (Crystal, 2014) set the research agenda for acquisition of all languages of the world. As we know from the work of Clifton Pye, Susan Suzman, Katherine Demuth, Shanley Allen, and colleagues, there are myriad interesting, important, and salient aspects of child K’iche’ Mayan, Zulu, Sesotho, and Inuktitut, beyond the timing of passive acquisition. Similarly, while Courtney’s (2006) study of Quechua child and adult relative clauses contributed new evidence against the relevance of the accessibility hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1979) for relative clause acquisition in that language, relative clauses are in fact extremely rare in naturalistic Quechua child-directed and child discourse. Courtney’s (1998, 2002) other work offers clues to points of interest more salient in naturalistic Quechua discourse (e.g. variable case-marking).