THE TOLERANCE PRINCIPLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE DATIVE SHIFT A Thesis submitted to the faculty of A* San Francisco State University % In partial fulfillment of the requirements for rs/cn the Degree Master of Arts In Psychology: Mind, Brain, and Behavior by Divya Subramanian San Francisco, California August 2019 Copyright by Divya Subramanian 2019 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read The Tolerance Principle: A Closer Look at the Dative Shift by Divya Subramanian, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Psychology: Mind, Brain, and Behavior at San Francisco State University. THE TOLERANCE PRINCIPLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE DATIVE SHIFT Divya Subramanian San Francisco, California 2019 Some dative verbs appear in both the double object construction (Give me the toy) and the prepositional construction (Give the toy to me), while others can only be used in one construction (Say something to me // *Say me something). Children cannot expect to hear every grammatical possibility, nor can they assume that dative verbs they have not previously heard in a construction can never be used in that construction. This results in a paradox: How do children learn what constructions are ungrammatical in the absence of negative evidence? Yang (2016) proposed a possible explanation to this paradox using the Tolerance Principle, a model that predicts linguistic productivity. In this thesis, we replicate Yang’s analysis of how children learn the dative shift using positive evidence alone. We then conduct a modified analysis to address some of the potential limitations in Yang’s study. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. Date TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables................................................................................................................................vii List of Figures............................................................................................................................. viii List of Appendices........................................................................................................................ix 1. Introduction................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Rules and Exceptions................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Productivity................................................................................................................. 2 1.3 The Past Tense Debate...............................................................................................4 2. The Tolerance Principle............................................................................................................5 2.1 Evidence in Favor of the Tolerance Principle.........................................................8 2.2 The English Dative Shift..........................................................................................14 2.3 Discussion................................................................................................................. 27 3. Analysis of the Dative Shift: Replication of Yang (2016).................................................28 3.1 M aterials....................................................................................................................29 3.2 CHILDES Corpus Extraction.................................................................................30 3.3 Analysis 1: Establishing Caused Possession Rules.............................................32 3.4 Analysis 2: Developmental Stages of a Caused Possession Rule...................... 35 3.5 Analysis 3: Narrow-Range Rules........................................................................... 37 3.6 Discussion................................................................................................................. 41 v TABLE OF CONTENTS (cont.) 4. Analysis of the Dative Shift with Modifications...............................................................45 4.1 M aterials....................................................................................................................45 4.2 Analysis 1: Establishing Caused Possession Rules............................................ 46 4.3 Analysis 2: Developmental Stages of a Caused Possession Rule..................... 51 4.4 Analysis 3: Narrow-Range Rules........................................................................... 54 4.5 Discussion................................................................................................................. 58 References..................................................................................................................................... 62 Appendices.................................................................................................................................... 65 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Table 1.......................................................................................................................7 2. Table 2 .......................................................................................................................10 3. Table 3 ...................................................................................................................... 23 4. Table 4 ...................................................................................................................... 37 5. Table 5 ...................................................................................................................... 53 LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page 1. Figure 1 ....3 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page 1. Appendix A ................................................................................................................. 65 2. Appendix B .................................................................................................................68 3. Appendix C .................................................................................................................69 4. Appendix D ................................................................................................................. 70 1 1. Introduction 1.1 Rules and Exceptions Second language learners are likely familiar with the struggle of painstakingly memorizing a grammatical rule only to be later presented with a list of exceptions. As it stands, nearly all grammatical rules have exceptions. The English language, which will be the focus of this paper, is rife with irregularities. For example, the regular English past-tense ending is the -ed suffix (1), but there are also many exceptions to this rule, such as sang, ran, or ate (2). (1) I walk the dog. —► I walked the dog. (2) I eat sandwiches. —> I ate sandwiches. Typically, second language learners are explicitly taught the exceptions to a rule. But in the case of first language acquisition, children are not always formally instructed on which forms are rule-following and which are exceptions. Children may begin using the past tense forms of verbs as early as 24 months of age. Around this time, adult feedback is inconsistent. Some adults may correct errors, whereas others may repeat the error back to the child in ‘baby talk’. Furthermore, there is evidence that correction, even when provided, makes little difference in language development (Marcus, 1993). Then, how do children learn what is or is not grammatical? A conservative approach might suggest that children simply refrain from uttering a phrase they haven’t previously heard before. Under this assumption, a child who has never heard the past tense form purchased would never use it in a sentence. Child speech data would quickly disprove this, as it is apparent that children do not limit their speech to what they have previously heard. Instead, children extract information about what is grammatically correct from what they have heard and extend it to new phrases. Therefore, a child could 2 extract information from other past tense forms (e.g. hugged, laughed, and talked) and extend the pattern to produce the form purchased. 1.2 Productivity This is due to one of the key principles of human language, productivity. In general terms, productivity means that what people produce in speech extends far beyond what they have previously heard. In relation to grammatical rules, productivity refers to the generalizability of a rule. A rule is said to be productive if it is extended to new or unfamiliar cases. In a famous experiment known as the Wug Test, children were shown to already be using language productively (Berko, 1958). As part of this test, children were introduced to several made up verb stems, and then asked to produce the past tense form (3). Most preschoolers and first-graders were able to produce the regular past tense form for half of the verbs shown to them. Although their proficiency was not on the same level as adult participants, this study demonstrated that even for young children, the English past tense is typically denoted by the -ed suffix. This suggests that the regular past tense ending is productive, and children as young as preschool-aged can grasp it. (3) Past tense. Man swinging an object. “This is a man who knows how to rick /rik/. He is ricking. He did the same thing yesterday. What did he do yesterday? Yesterday he ." However, as was previously mentioned, not all English