X'-internal word order in Mandarin Chinese and universal grammar

In a recent paper, Clahsen and Muysken (1986) argue that adult second lan guage (L2) learners no longer have access to Universal Grammar (UG) and acquire the L2 by means of learning strategies and ad hoc rules. They use evidence from adult L2 acquisition of German word order to argue that the rules that adults use are not natural language rules. In this paper, we argue that this is not the case. We explain properties of Germanic word order in terms of three parameters (to do with head position, proper government and adjunc tion). We reanalyse Clahsen and Muysken's data in terms of these parameters and show that the stages that adult learners go through, the errors that they make and the rules that they adopt are perfectly consistent with a UG incor porating such parameters. We suggest that errors are the result of some of the parameters being set inappropriately for German. The settings chosen are nevertheless those of existing natural languages. We also discuss additional data, from our own research on the acquisition of German and Afrikaans, which support our analysis of adult L2 acquisition of Germanic languages.

Download Full-text

First Language Acquisition

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199573776.013.12 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 269-288

Author(s):

Maria-Teresa Guasti

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Syntactic Structure ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

First Language ◽

Formal Semantics ◽

Hierarchical Organization ◽

Human Beings ◽

Brain Organization ◽

Speech Stimuli ◽

Semantics And Pragmatics

Humans acquire language naturally, namely without specific instruction, by being exposed to it and by interacting with other human beings. According to the generativist enterprise, humans are endowed with a system of knowledge on the form of possible human languages (Universal Grammar). Evidence consistent with this assumption is provided in the chapter, by illustrating crucial phenomena ranging from the acquisition of phonology, to morphosyntax, syntax, formal semantics, and pragmatics. Infants’ brain organization is tuned to speech stimuli and presents left hemisphere specialization, from the first days of life, if not already in the mother’s womb. Infants set apart languages at two days of age, based on durational or rhythmic properties. Toddlers combine words by respecting the basic word order and are very sensitive to the hierarchical organization of sentences, both when it comes to the syntactic structure and when it comes to the interpretation of sentences.

Download Full-text

Information Structure and Word Order Preference in Child and Adult Speech of Mandarin Chinese

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages5020014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 14

Author(s):

Jidong Chen ◽

Bhuvana Narasimhan ◽

Angel Chan ◽

Wenchun Yang ◽

Shu Yang

Keyword(s):

Mandarin Chinese ◽

Word Order ◽

Information Structure ◽

Noun Phrases ◽

Late Development ◽

Linguistic Markers ◽

Production Study ◽

Order Preference

The acquisition of appropriate linguistic markers of information structure (IS), e.g., word order and specific lexical and syntactic constructions, is a rather late development. This study revisits the debate on language-general preferred word order in IS and examines the use of language-specific means to encode IS in Mandarin Chinese. An elicited production study of conjunct noun phrases (NPs) of new and old referents was conducted with native Mandarin-speaking children (N = 24, mean age 4;6) and adults (N = 25, mean age 26). (The age of children is conventionally notated as years;months). The result shows that adults differ significantly from children in preferring the “old-before-new” word order. This corroborates prior findings in other languages (e.g., German, English, Arabic) that adults prefer a language-general “old-before-new” IS, whereas children disprefer or show no preference for that order. Despite different word order preferences, Mandarin-speaking children and adults resemble each other in the lexical and syntactic forms to encode old and new referents: bare NPs dominate the conjunct NPs, and indefinite classifier NPs are used for both the old and the new referents, but when only one classifier phrase is produced, it is predominantly used to refer to the new referents, which suggests children’s early sensitivity to language-specific syntactic devices to mark IS.

Download Full-text

The partitive construction in Mandarin Chinese

International Journal of Chinese Linguistics ◽

10.1075/ijchl.2.1.04jin ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 85-120 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jing Jin

Keyword(s):

Mandarin Chinese ◽

Word Order ◽

Small Clause ◽

Parametric Variation ◽

The Difference ◽

Syntactic Properties ◽

Syntactic Derivation

This paper investigates the semantic and syntactic properties of [N(oun)+de+Q(uantifier)] in Mandarin Chinese. Based on a comparison with the quantitive construction [Q+N], the paper advocates that [N+de+Q] is the Chinese partitive construction. Adopting a clausal approach to the syntactic derivation of partitives, it is hypothesized that Chinese partitives are formed via applying Predicate Inversion to a small clause that features a BELONG-type possession relationship. The difference between Chinese partitives and English-type partitives in terms of the surface word order is a result of a parametric variation with respect to whether the remnant of Predication Inversion undergoes further raising or not.

Download Full-text

Word Order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar

Philosophy East and West ◽

10.2307/1397853 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 202

Author(s):

Walter H. Maurer ◽

J. F. Staal

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Universal Grammar

Download Full-text

The acquisition of word order in Dutch and German as L1 and L2

Interlanguage studies bulletin (Utrecht) ◽

10.1177/026765838800400103 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 41-65 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Peter Jordens

Keyword(s):

Simple Model ◽

Adult Learners ◽

Word Order ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

First Language ◽

Linguistic Theory ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

German Word ◽

L2 Learners ◽

L1 And L2

In a recent paper, Clahsen and Muysken (1986) argue that children acquiring German as their first language have access to the 'move alpha' matrix when constructing a grammar for German. This should explain why children have SOV base order and the rule of verb-fronting from the very beginning. In this paper, it is argued that children's OV utterances cannot be related trans formationally to VO utterances. Initially, children acquire OV and VO with different sets of verbs.Clahsen and Muysken (1986) also claim that interlanguage rules of adult L2 learners are not definable in linguistic theory. Du Plessis et al. (1987) reply to this in arguing that the interlanguage rules of adults acquiring L2 German word order fall within the range of systems permitted by the Headedness parameter, the Proper Government parameter, and the Adjunction parameter. Therefore, these adult learners should have access to Universal Grammar (UG). It is argued here that it is not necessary to make this assumption. The L2-acquisition data can be easily accounted for within a simple model of L1-structural transfer.

Download Full-text

Constraining second language word order optionality: scrambling in advanced English-German and Japanese-German interlanguage

Second language Research ◽

10.1191/0267658305sr246oa ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 34-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Holger Hopp

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Word Order ◽

Universal Grammar ◽

First Language ◽

Target Language ◽

Transfer Effects ◽

L1 Transfer ◽

Remnant Movement ◽

Functional Features ◽

Japanese Learners

This study documents knowledge of UG-mediated aspects of optionality in word order in the second language (L2) German of advanced English and Japanese speakers ( n = 39). A bimodal grammaticality judgement task, which controlled for context and intonation, was administered to probe judgements on a set of scrambling, topicalization and remnant movement constructions. Given first language (L1) differences and Poverty of the Stimulus, English and Japanese learners face distinct learnability challenges. Assuming Minimalist grammatical architecture (Chomsky, 1995), convergence on the target language would entail the unimpaired availability of Universal Grammar (UG), i.e., computational principles and functional features beyond their L1 instantiation. Irrespective of L1, the L2 groups are found to establish systematic native-like relative distinctions. In addition, L1 transfer effects are attested for judgements on scrambling. It is argued that these findings imply that interlanguage grammars are fully UG constrained, whilst initially informed by L1 properties.

Download Full-text