2018 Sat Poster 6577

Saturday, November 3, 2018 | Poster Session II, Metcalf Small | 3:15pm

How do children interpret novel control verbs?
A. Santos, A. Jesus, S. Abalada

Background: It is generally accepted that children prefer object control over subject control readings. This is in agreement with results obtained by [1], namely difficulties with promise and good comprehension of control under tell. In general, avoidance of subject control would be justified by the Minimal Link Condition ([2]), as well as by an analysis suggesting that subject control involves smuggling ([3]). If one of these views is accepted, pre-school children are expected to give (adult-like) obligatory object control readings of (1). However, recent work on European Portuguese (EP) suggests that object control is problematic for pre- school children, who often give subject control readings to object control structures ([4, 5]). Could this be related to the availability of inflected infinitive complements in EP? In general, inflected infinitives are not obligatory control contexts (see 2), the exception is the complement of object control verbs, a context in which the subject of the inflected infinitive is obligatorily controlled by the object (see 3).

Goals: We aim at determining (i) if there is indeed an initial bias favoring object control when children listen to novel ditransitive verbs; (ii) whether this possible bias is maintained when the complement is an inflected infinitive complement; (iii) if the interpretation of the inflected infinitive is more complex, namely forcing the subject to consider other readings, and therefore justifying longer reaction times (RT).

Method: We designed two experiments: one testing pseudo-words (verbs) (which simulate novel verbs) in object control frames (see 4); other testing existing object control verbs for comparison (see 5). We manipulate Type of infinitive (inflected vs. uninflected infinitive). The experiments were picture choice tasks (4 pictures, corresponding to object control, subject control, split control readings and a distractor – see Figure 1) and were performed in E-prime, measuring picture choice and RT. If inflected infinitives activate a broader set of possible interpretations, we expect longer reaction times in this condition. The experiments were applied to 30 4 year-olds (mean: 4;6.6), 30 5 year-olds (mean 5;8.3) and a control group of 30 adults.

Results and discussion: Both adults and children prefer object control readings; however, subject control answers also occur at high rates, especially in the younger group (30%), a fact showing that subject control is not completely avoided by the younger children, contrary to expectations. For each experiment (verbs and pseudo-verbs), a GLMM (subject as random factor) was performed for object control vs. other answers: no effect of the inflected vs. uninflected infinitive contrast was found and only age showed a significant effect (p<.05), but with more object control answers given by adults than children. In the case of the experiment with verbs, the verb itself had a significant effect on results (p<.001). Most interestingly, in the experiment with pseudo-words (novel verbs) the analysis of RT shows a significant Age by Type of infinitive interaction, with 4 year-olds showing significantly longer RT with inflected infinitives (p<.001). Given this, we cannot exclude that inflected infinitives increase the complexity of the acquisition of control structures in EP.

References

  1. Chomsky, C (1969). The acquisition of syntax in children from 5 to 10. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT
  2. Hornstein, (1999). Movement and control. Linguistic Inquiry 30.1:69-96.
  3. Beletti, L. Rizzi (2013) Ways of avoiding intervention: some thoughts on the development of object relatives, passive and control. In M. Piattelli-Palmarini & R. C. Berwick (eds.). Rich Languages from Poor Inputs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  4. Santos, L., A. Gonçalves, & N. Hyams (2016). Aspects of the acquisition of object control and ECM-type verbs in European Portuguese. Language Acquisition, 23(3), 199-233.
  5. Agostinho, Celina (2014). The acquisition of control in European Portuguese complement clauses. Dissertação de Mestrado em Linguística, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.