Abstract categories or limited-scope formulae? The case of children's determiners.
ABSTRACTSix tests of the spontaneous speech of twenty-one English-speaking children (1 ; 10 to 2 ; 8; MLUs 1.53 to 4.38) demonstrate the presence of the syntactic category determiner from the start of combinatorial speech, supporting nativist accounts. Children use multiple determiners before a noun to the same extent as their mothers (1) when only a and the or (2) all determiners are analyzed, or (3) when children and mothers are matched on determiner and noun types and determiner+noun tokens. (4) Overlap increases as opportunity for overlap increases: children use multiple determiners with more than 50% of nouns used at least twice with a determiner and with 80% of nouns used at least six times with a determiner. (5) Formulae play a limited role in low-MLU children's determiner usage, increasing with MLU. (6) Less than 1% of determiner uses are errors. Prior results showing no overlap are likely a sampling artifact.
Valian
Virginia
V
Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY, 10065, USA. virginia.valian@hunter.cuny.edu
Solt
Stephanie
S
Stewart
John
J
D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008037:Linguistics; D009035:Mothers; D013060:Speech; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors