Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh-question acquisition: 'what children do know'?
The present paper reports an analysis of correct wh-question production and subject-auxiliary inversion errors in one child's early wh-question data (age 2;3.4 to 4;10.23). It is argued that two current movement rule accounts (DeVilliers, 1991; Valian, Lasser & Mandelbaum, 1992) cannot explain the patterning of early wh-questions. However, the data can be explained in terms of the child's knowledge of particular lexically-specific wh-word + auxiliary combinations, and the pattern of inversion and uninversion predicted from the relative frequencies of these combinations in the mother's speech. The results support the claim that correctly inverted wh-questions can be produced without access to a subject-auxiliary inversion rule and are consistent with the constructivist claim that a distributional learning mechanism that learns and reproduces lexically-specific formulae heard in the input can explain much of the early multi-word speech data. The implications of these results for movement rule-based and constructivist theories of grammatical development are discussed.
Rowland
C F
CF
Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Derby, UK. c.rowland@derby.ac.uk
Pine
J M
JM
D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D014705:Verbal Behavior