Topics in the acquisition of complex constructions in German.

Abstract

This theses contributes to the growing body of research on the acquisition of complex syntax by young children. Relying on naturalistic and experimental data, I consider the acquisition of complex constructions in German. I assume a weak continuity approach in which the child's phrase marker is gradually expanding and phrase structure trees are built up in a bottom-up fashion, in accordance with current minimalist assumptions. The child's grammar is viewed as both minimal and economical, the phrase marker being projected only as far as is necessary to licence elements within it. Once feature values of a functional category become fully specified, it becomes associated with a lexical item. It is argued that the familiar Verb Second (V2) phenomenon in German involves movement to the functional category IP, rather than CP, contrary to what is often assumed. I assume that what has traditionally been referred to as CP is comprised of features relating to logical mood and subordination, and that verbal inflectional features are located in the node immediately lower in the tree, namely IP. The analysis is supported by the spontaneous speech data of two twin monolingual German-speaking children, for whom it is observed that V2 is acquired relatively early, yet constructions involving the C-system continue to present difficulties. The acquisition of subordinate constructions, particularly relative clauses, is examined in the spontaneous speech data of three children, for whom subordination is more developed than the twins. I argue that CP is accessible to these children, however, not an the lexical elements which occupy this position have been acquired. It is argued that when tense is used and finiteness is identified as a feature of C, C is accessible, and may be used for subordination. At this point, however, other features of CP [operator], [wh], [question], [reference], may still be underspecified, and consequently, need not be lexically filled. A cross-linguistic examination of the early acquisition of relative claim centers on the issue of movement versus non-movement. Early relative clauses in the German spontaneous speech data are adult-like from the time they appear, which can be taken to support a wh-movement analysis of early relative clause formation, as in the adult grammar. The results of the experimental data with respect to early relative clauses in German differ somewhat from the spontaneous speech data, revealing a preference for subject relatives over object relatives, and a surprising absence of wo (where)-relatives, which were very common in the naturalistic data. The experimental data revealed that differences between children and adults are largely quantitative rather than qualitative. An experiment considering the issue of sensitivity to restrictiveness in relative clauses in English yielded inconclusive results. An examination of who- and that-relatives revealed no significant distinction; however, some children showed sensitivity to the use of proper names as possible antecedents for relative clauses, indicating that restrictiveness may play a role in children's interpretation of Object-Subject relatives. However, it is not clear that children's early relative clauses are in fact restrictive, or that restrictiveness should facilitate interpretation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)