The Structure and Meaning of Compounds in Child and Adult Grammars
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THE STRUCTURE AND MEANING OF COMPOUNDS IN CHILD AND ADULT GRAMMARS By Jessica Lee Gamache A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Linguistics—Doctor of Philosophy 2014 ABSTRACT THE STRUCTURE AND MEANING OF COMPOUNDS IN CHILD AND ADULT GRAMMARS By Jessica Lee Gamache This dissertation presents a series of studies examining the structure and meaning of compounds, such as mouse-trap and mouse-catcher, in child and adult grammars. The first part of this dissertation examines how adults interpret compounds and the second part examines how children acquire the adult compounding system. The goals are (i) to argue that a generative lexical semantics is necessary to understand how speakers use compounds and (ii) to argue that children use the same generative mechanism as adults to build compound interpretations. In the first part of this dissertation two adult studies examine the role of a generative syntax and a generative lexical semantics (Pustejovsky 1995) in the interpretation of compounds. The first study asks adults to interpret novel noun-noun compounds and verbal compounds. The results support the hypothesis that organized lexical information, including natural classes, must be taken into account in addition to syntactic structure to determine the most likely meaning of compounds. The second study asks adults to rate different interpretations of verbal compounds. The results support the hypothesis that the syntax of verbal compounds constrains the relationship between the verb and modifier to a single verb-internal argument interpretation. Taken together, these results support a model where both the syntax and the lexical semantics are active, generative mechanisms. In the second part of this dissertation five child studies test the hypothesis that, given compositionality, children’s knowledge of syntax and lexical semantics go hand in hand with their interpretation. Three studies examine children’s production and interpretation of noun- noun compounds, with the goal of determining if children use lexical structure in the same way as adults when producing and interpreting compounds. The first noun-noun study is a corpus study. The results support the hypothesis that children and adults produce novel noun-noun compounds according to the natural classes of the constituents in compounds, but not the individual words in compounds. The second noun-noun compound study is an elicited production task. The results provide evidence for children’s production of compounds for the same range of meanings as adults, albeit to a lesser degree overall. Finally, the third noun-noun compound study is a forced-choice interpretation task. The results support the hypothesis that children interpret novel compounds according to their knowledge of natural class behavior, rather than individual word behavior. Next, two studies examine children’s production and interpretation of verbal compounds. The goal of these studies is to examine whether children’s knowledge of verbal compound syntax, as evidenced by their production, makes predictions about children’s comprehension of verbal compounds. The first study is an elicited production task. The results provide evidence for the idea that children’s non-adult verbal compound forms (catch- mouse and catcher-mouse but not mouse-catch for mouse-catcher) reflect the steps in the adult derivation of verbal compounds. The second study is a forced-choice interpretation task. From the results we observe that children constrain their interpretation of verbal compounds based on their knowledge of the verbal compound structure. In summary, the results of the child studies provide evidence that children use the same system as adults to interpret compounds, and any deviations from adult-like interpretations can be explained by non-adult syntactic or lexical semantic knowledge. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would have never come to life (especially in the speed in which it did) without the love, care, and support of so many people. Mom, thank you for always setting an example of perseverance and strength. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found myself more and more in awe of all that you have been able to do. Dad, thank you for always supporting me in any decision I’ve made. Your faith in me has helped me to push myself when I was too afraid to go after what I really wanted. Brucie, thank you for being everything and more that a child could ask for in a stepfather and an amazing husband to Mom. Tressa and Becky, thank you for being my best friends and always being there to talk to me when I need them (except for when they think I’m being an “arrogant …”). I’m really glad nothing ever became of the butter knife incident. Soon enough we will find the ideal vacation where no one ends up crying and Tress doesn’t feel the need to run away at 6 am because we’re fighting over a broken comb. On the upside, us fighting gets Tressa emotional and that’s entertaining. Mema, thank you for always supporting me and being up for new adventures. I promise that I will never drag you around another city (Chicago) or country (Spain) on foot again. Steve, I don’t know how you dealt with me for this past year of my life, but I will never be able to thank you enough for being there for me and loving me through every freak out and tear and the small monster I became. I can’t wait for all of the adventures we have to come. iv Kerry, Molly, and Tori, thank you for still being a part of my life after all of these years. I am so lucky to know that, even if we go months without talking, you will all be there for me. Tuuli and Kali, what would I have done in Michigan without you two? Period. Having the New Yorker and the Texan as constants in my life gave me more of a sense of balance than I could have ever imagined. Greg and Curt, thank you for being my first friends and Michigan and two of the people I always knew that I could go to when I needed to talk. Even if the talking involving cry-laughing. Cristina, thank you for all of the time and patience that you’ve given to me. You have taught me so much about research and how to be a good mentor. I hope that I can embody that as I go on into my career. Alan, thank you for your insight and help over the past five years. Your easy-going nature made me feel like I was right at home from the second I got to MSU. Laura, thank you for taking me under your wing and teaching me so much of what I know about experimental research. I hope that I was able to give back to the lab as much as I got from it. Yen-Hwei, thank you for always being patience and generous with your time and advice. It was invaluable to my time at MSU. Devin, thank you for being a more than reasonable boss, especially in my last year when I was much more focused on my dissertation than being the cognitive science assistant. Mina and Kyle, the amount of enthusiasm and dedication that you brought to our research was so inspiring to me. I am so glad that we’ve come to be friends. If either of you v ever want to go back to Europe, let me know! This time we’ll go for more than 4 days and we’ll spend less time in a conference room. Mrs. Elwood, I am so glad that we have stayed in touch for all of these years. While you started as just my teacher, you’ve become a friend and mentor and your sound advice has served me well so far, and I assume will for the rest of my life. And finally, to the many, many schools that allowed me to come in and conduct my research, thank you so, so much. Without you my research could truly not be done. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. xi LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Adults’ Interpretation of Compounds ..................................................................................... 2 1.2 Children’s Interpretation of Compounds ................................................................................ 5 1.3 Relevance ...................................................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Organization of Chapters ........................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 2: LINGUISTICS BACKGROUND........................................................................ 11 2.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Basic assumptions ..................................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Compound Basics ..................................................................................................................... 12 2.3 Deriving Interpretations ........................................................................................................... 13 2.3.1 The Syntax of Compounds ............................................................................................ 13 2.3.1.1 The Syntax of Noun-Noun Compounds