Acquisition of the Verbal Domain in Child Greek
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ACQUISITION OF THE VERBAL DOMAIN IN CHILD GREEK EVIDENCE FROM A NEW CHILD GREEK CORPUS Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences Thomas Doukas June 2011 ABSTRACT The current thesis addresses the acquisition of the verbal domain in early Greek by exploring tense, finiteness, and subject-verb agreement based on samples from two monolingual children aged 1;7 – 2;11. The analyses of the data address two main theoretical accounts of language acquisition, namely, the generative approach and the usage-based approach. The results of the analyses, however, suggest that the latter approach did not provide sufficient empirical evidence to account for the data presented in this study. Previous research suggested that sigmatic past in Greek is more prominent than non-sigmatic past, and therefore, its acquisition is subject to a dual mechanism. The results of the use of past tense suggest that sigmatic forms are used more often than non-sigmatic ones. A frequency analysis suggests that high frequency past tense forms in adults are used more often by children than low frequency ones. Studies in child Greek proposed an early stage of development, during which children produce non-finite non-adult verbal forms, also referred to as the Root Infinitive stage. The data analysis show very few non-finite non-adult forms. These occur in children‘s speech only for a very short period at around the age of 2 years. The frequency analysis reveals that input does not relate to the production of RIs in children‘s speech. Previous studies on the acquisition of verbal morphology showed that children‘s use of person and number markings are not productive and that children use mainly the 3rd singular. The subject-verb agreement analysis shows that error rates are low in children‘s speech and that subject-verb agreement is used productively from very early. 2 A frequency analysis shows that use of inflectional morphology is very similar between the two children but different to adults. To conclude, this thesis provides new evidence for very early acquisition of the verbal domain in child Greek. 3 Declaration I confirm that this is my own work and the use of all material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged. Thomas Doukas ____________________________________________________________ 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Embarking on this journey there was only one aphorism in my mind: reach what you cannot (Nikos Kazantzakis — Report to Greco). Completing a doctoral thesis is a herculean task. One‘s feelings are mixed; there is relief, happiness, sheer terror, anticipation, worry, and nostalgia. There‘s also gratitude and appreciation due, to many individuals, so this is an opportunity for me to thank all these people that have been, directly and indirectly, involved in this task. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Theo Marinis, for his support, patience and continuous advice and guidance for the past years. Theo‘s contribution to this task has been invaluable. I am grateful to a number of linguists for discussing my ideas, and for entertaining my linguistic apprehensions in the course of this task, but mostly for their friendship; these are Evi Sifaki, Dina Haidou, Vina Tsakali, and Laura Mutti. Special thanks are due to James Fenton for reading and commenting on some parts of this thesis, for coffees, cakes and great conversation by the river, and for being a true friend. I would like to thank Maria‘s and Eve‘s families for allowing them to participate in this study. My time spent with Maria and Eve during the recordings was the most joyful part of this thesis. Not all of my time was spent writing this thesis. Over the past 4 years I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with a number of people at Choice Support. I am grateful to Sarah Maguire, Pippa Gascoigne and Kim Arnold, for encouraging me, for being flexible with my research duties, and for listening to all my worries. Thanks for being there for me! 5 Special thanks are due to Andrew Moore for his psychological support, his belief in me, and his long-lasting patience and for being constantly beside me; sine qua non! Last but not least, a huge thanks to my beloved family, my parents and my siblings, for their emotional and financial support, love and encouragement during the past years. Surely without their constant presence, belief in me and care I could not have succeeded on this project. I hope I am making you really proud! This thesis is dedicated to Marina Tsakiridou, the converted Hypatia. 6 Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... 10 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 14 ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................ 15 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 17 2 THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ..................................................... 22 2.1 Intro ................................................................................................................. 22 2.2 How is language acquired? ............................................................................. 22 2.3 Generative approaches to language acquisition .............................................. 23 2.3.1 The logical problem of language acquisition ............................................ 23 2.3.2 Innateness .................................................................................................. 24 2.3.3 The language faculty ................................................................................. 27 2.3.4 The role of input in UG ............................................................................. 28 2.3.5 The Principles and Parameters Theory ..................................................... 31 2.3.6 Acquisition and Parameter Setting ........................................................... 33 2.3.7 The minimalist perspective ....................................................................... 35 2.3.8 Maturation and Continuity accounts of Language Acquisition ................ 38 2.4 Usage-based accounts of Language Acquisition ............................................ 40 2.4.1 Role of input ............................................................................................. 44 2.4.2 Verb Island Hypothesis ............................................................................. 46 2.4.3 Frequency .................................................................................................. 48 2.4.4 Pre- proto- and morphology proper .......................................................... 48 2.5 Summary ......................................................................................................... 50 3 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 52 3.1 Methods of Data Collection ............................................................................ 52 3.2 The data ........................................................................................................... 56 3.3 Maria‘s data .................................................................................................... 57 3.3.1 The data collection procedure and transcription ...................................... 58 3.3.2 Coding ....................................................................................................... 59 3.4 Eve‘s data ........................................................................................................ 59 3.4.1 The data collection procedure ................................................................... 61 3.4.2 Transcription ............................................................................................. 61 3.4.3 Coding ....................................................................................................... 62 3.4.4 Other remarks on the coding ..................................................................... 73 3.4.5 Using the coding ....................................................................................... 77 3.4.6 CLAN (Computerised Language Analyses) ............................................. 78 3.4.7 Frozen expressions .................................................................................... 80 3.4.8 Imitations and self-repetitions .................................................................. 85 3.5 Stages of development: Age and MLU ........................................................... 85 3.5.1 MLUw ....................................................................................................... 89 3.6 Contextual information ................................................................................... 91 7 4 PAST TENSE ......................................................................................................... 93 4.1 Aims of the chapter ......................................................................................... 93 4.2 Past tense formation in Modern Greek ........................................................... 95 4.3 Aspect ............................................................................................................. 95 4.4 Tense (past) ....................................................................................................