Marit Westergaard

The Acquisition of Word Order: Micro-cues, information structure, and economy

Within a new model of language acquisition, this book discusses verb second (V2) word order in situations where there is variation in the input. While traditional generative accounts consider V2 to be a parameter, this study shows that, in many languages, this word order is dependent on fine distinctions in syntax and information structure. Thus, within a split-CP model of clause structure, a number of micro-cues are formulated, taking into account the specific context for V2 vs. non-V2 (clause type, subcategory of the elements involved, etc.). The micro-cues are produced in children’s I-language grammars on exposure to the relevant input. Focusing on a dialect of Norwegian, the book shows that children generally produce target-consistent V2 and non-V2 from early on, indicating that they are sensitive to the micro-cues. This includes contexts where word order is dependent on information structure. The children’s occasional non-target-consistent behavior is accounted for by economy principles.

Usage-based vs. rule-based learning: the acquisition of word order in wh -questions in English and Norwegian

This paper discusses different approaches to language acquisition in relation to childrens acquisition of word order in wh-questions in English and Norwegian. While generative models assert that children set major word order parameters and thus acquire a rule of subject-auxiliary inversion or generalized verb second (V2) at an early stage, some constructivist work argues that English-speaking children are simply reproducing frequent wh-word+auxiliary combinations in the input. The paper questions both approaches, re-evaluates some previous work, and provides some further data, concluding that the acquisition of wh-questions must be the result of a rule-based process. Based on variation in adult grammars, a cue-based model to language acquisition is presented, according to which children are sensitive to minor cues in the input, called micro-cues. V2 is not considered to be one major parameter, but several smaller-scale cues, which are responsible for childrens lack of syntactic (over-)generalization in the acquisition process.

Crosslinguistic influence in the acquisition of a third language: The Linguistic Proximity Model

Aims and Objectives: The main goal of the present study is to investigate effects of crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition by simultaneous bilinguals. We address the following research questions: Do both languages contribute to crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition, or is one of them chosen as the sole source of influence? Is crosslinguistic influence always from the typologically more similar language? Is crosslinguistic influence always facilitative, or can it also be non-facilitative? Methodology: The paper reports on a grammaticality judgment task with two word order conditions, both related to verb movement (verb-second in Norwegian and subject-auxiliary inversion in English). Data and Analysis: An experiment was carried out with three groups of 11-14-year-old participants, Norwegian-Russian bilinguals (n=22), Norwegian-speaking monolinguals (n=46), and Russian-speaking monolinguals (n=31). The data were analyzed using a generalized linear mixed effects logistic regression allowing us to estimate the effects of condition (Adv-V, Aux-S), language (Norwegian, Norwegian-Russian, Russian) and their interaction on the correctness of judgments. Findings: The analysis reveals that while L1 Norwegian children over-accept ungrammatical sentences in English with a word order that reflects verb movement (V2), bilingual Norwegian-Russian children notice these errors significantly more often, just like L1 Russians. At the same time, the bilinguals score lower than L1 Russian children on grammatical trials, suggesting the presence of non-facilitative influence from Norwegian. Originality: This study argues for the Linguistic Proximity Model, which proposes incremental property-by-property learning and allows for both facilitative and non-facilitative influence from one or both of the previously acquired languages. Significance: The Linguistic Proximity Model and supporting experimental data contribute to existing models in third language acquisition by indicating that not just typological proximity but also structural similarity at an abstract level should be considered an important factor in third language acquisition.

Language Acquisition and Language Change: Inter-relationships

Children acquire a mature language system and sometimes this system differs from that of their parents. This is a significant part of language change and understanding acquisition is key to understanding this kind of change in peoples internal grammars. We outline an approach to language acquisition that is based on children finding cues and microcues expressed in the input they are exposed to. This enables us to understand historical change in grammars: change in external language sometimes triggers a new internal grammar as cues come to be expressed differently. We bring together work on language variation, acquisition, and change, show how these three areas are mutually dependent, and how empirical work in one area may enrich understanding more generally, opening the way to new kinds of empirical work.

Optional word order in wh-questions in two Norwegian dialects: a diachronic analysis of synchronic variation

Based on a corpus of spontaneous production data, this paper compares the word order of wh-questions in two Norwegian dialects, Kafjord and Tromso. While the choice of word order (V2 or non-V2) in Tromso is dependent on information structure, the Kafjord speakers produce considerably more non-V2 in questions with monosyllabic wh-elements. The majority of questions with multisyllabic wh-constituents, on the other hand, occurs with V2. This synchronic variation is given a diachronic analysis within a Split-CP model of clause structure and a cue-based approach to acquisition and change, where an economy principle (head preference) also plays an important role. Furthermore, an information structure drift from V2 to non-V2 is argued to cause the cue for verb movement to fall below a critical level in the input to children, the result being that V2 only survives in lexically marked cases in Kafjord, i.e. with the verb ‘be’.

Grammatical gender in bilingual Norwegian-Russian Acquisition: The role of input and transparency

This paper investigates the role of parental input and transparency in the acquisition of two different gender systems, Norwegian and Russian, by bilingual children living in Norway. While gender in Russian is generally predictable from the morphophonological shape of the noun (with some exceptions), gender assignment in Norwegian is opaque. An experimental production study was carried out with two groups of bilinguals, children with one or two Russian-speaking parents, and monolingual controls (age 4;1–7;11). The findings show that both groups of bilinguals perform similarly to monolinguals in Norwegian, the majority language, despite the lack of transparency. In Russian, on the other hand, not only quantitative, but also qualitative differences are found in the data of the bilingual children with the least exposure to the language. These qualitative differences indicate that early age of onset is not sufficient to acquire phenomena such as gender; extensive input is necessary.

A cue-based approach to the acquisition of grammatical gender in Russian.

This article discusses the acquisition of gender in Russian, focusing on some exceptional subclasses of nouns that display a mismatch between semantics and morphology. Experimental results from twenty-five Russian-speaking monolinguals (age 2 ; 6-4 ; 0) are presented and, within a cue-based approach to language acquisition, we argue that children rely on certain morphosyntactic micro-cues in the course of acquisition of semantic agreement. A discrepancy is observed in the acquisition of semantic agreement across the different noun classes, and this suggests that children are highly sensitive to fine distinctions in syntax and morphology and use detailed input information to make specific inferences concerning the gender of different noun classes. Furthermore, we argue that acquisition data may provide a more accurate account of how gender assignment proceeds in the mind of a speaker than has been traditionally assumed by gender assignment theories.

The Acquisition of Apparent Optionality: Word Order in Subject and Object Shift Constructions in Norwegian

This chapter discusses the word order of object shift and so-called subject shift constructions in Norwegian child language. Corpus data from young children (up to the age of approximately 3) show that they produce non-target-consistent word order in these contexts, failing to move pronominal subjects and objects across negation or sentence adverbs. Furthermore, the findings show that target-like word order in subject shift constructions falls into place relatively early (around age 2;6–3;0), while the delay is more persistent in object shift constructions. The paper also provides results of experimental data from somewhat older children which confirm these findings. In order to explain these child data, various factors are considered, e.g. pragmatic principles, prosody, syntactic economy and effects of frequency in the input. The paper concludes that the delay in movement can best be explained by a principle of economy, while the difference between the two constructions is accounted for by reference to input frequency.

Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?

This paper investigates possible attrition/change in the gender system of Norwegian heritage language spoken in America. Based on data from 50 speakers in the Corpus of American Norwegian Speech (CANS), we show that the three-gender system is to some extent retained, although considerable overgeneralization of the masculine (the most frequent gender) is attested. This affects both feminine and neuter gender forms, while declension class markers such as the definite suffix remain unaffected. We argue that the gender category is vulnerable due to the lack of transparency of gender assignment in Norwegian. Furthermore, unlike incomplete acquisition, which may result in a somewhat different or reduced gender system, attrition is more likely to lead to general erosion, eventually leading to complete loss of gender.

The Interaction of Input and UG in the Acquisition of Verb Movement in a Dialect of Norwegian

In this paper it is argued that a principle of information structure provided by Universal Grammar (UG) may interact with input in the acquisition of word order. In a study which investigates three children from the age of approximately 1;9 to 3 acquiring a Northern dialect of Norwegian, it has previously been shown that word order patterns in certain types of wh-questions which are sensitive to subtle distinctions in the information value of the subject (given vs. new) are acquired extremely early (Westergaard 2003a). This paper presents a study of the same children’s topicalization constructions, and it is shown that, although these patterns of information structure do not appear in the input, the children nevertheless show traces of these patterns in the non-target forms that they occasionally produce. Thus, in their very early production of topicalization constructions the children seem to be guided by a word order principle based on information structure, which could be taken as support for this as a word order preferred by UG.