CAS LX 400 Delving into syntax Second Language Acquisition • Syntactic theory has advanced quite a bit over the time that theories of L2A have been proposed and tested, and to make sense of the newer results, we will need to Week 5a. UG and L2A: dig a little deeper into current syntactic Functional categories, minimalism approaches within the Principles & Parameters framework. The Minimalist Program Lexical vs. functional • A fairly recent development is the approach to • To a first approximation at least, it is possible to grammar referred to as the “Minimalist split the words of a language into two groups, Program” discussed at length in Chomsky lexical and functional words. (1995) (which builds on a lot of prior work). • Under this conception of grammar, the • Lexical words include things like nouns and syntactic principles of language are verbs, and generally the open-class items in the completely fixed crosslinguistically; the language. These are words that can be easily “parameters” are actually aspects of special added to the language, e.g., xerox. items in the lexicon (the functional items). Lexical vs. functional Lexical vs. functional • Functional items are generally closed-class words, • The parameters of a language are features words that have a strictly grammatical function of functional words in the lexicon. and which generally cannot have new members added. For example, the, a, each, or, not, … • In a sense, learning the grammar of a • The functional items are the ones which are most language under this view is just a matter of closely tied to the grammar of a language. learning the properties of the function According to the MP, it is solely properties of these functional categories that determine the words. We’ll delve into this deeper as we differences between grammars of different continue… languages (rather than independent parameters). 1 Functional heads X-bar theory XP ′ • The inventory of functional items in a language is Specifier X not restricted to words. X Complement • Functional items also include suffixes and prefixes, • For thinking about functional structure in a sentence, e.g., -ed (past tense), -s (3sg agreement), -s we will make use of a recent development in the theory (plural),-ing (progressive), and so forth. of syntactic structure: X-bar theory. • Under this view of syntax, the basic structure of • X-bar theory is primarily based on the hypothesis that the sentence is held together by functional all structural components of a sentence can be elements, with the lexical elements sort of filling described in terms of the X-bar template above. in the blanks. • X stands for any category (for example V, N, …) X-bar theory X-bar theory XP ′ • Every category can have a complement (like an Specifier X object). For example the complement of V is the X Complement direct object (eat lunch), the complement of P is the object of the preposition (at school), the • The complement and the specifier are themselves complement of N (book of poems). each some kind of XP. • Consider book of poems. Of poems is the VP XP complement of the noun book. Book of poems is an NP. But of poems is itself an XP—it is a PP — V′ X′ Specifier (prepositional phrase), with of as the P and with the VNP X Complement complement poems. eat lunch DP X-bar theory A real live X-bar structure D′ • Here’s the book of poems. DP • A fairly clear example D NP • The is a determiner, of an X-bar structure the taking an NP complement ′′′ N′ DP D is a noun phrase with book, which takes a PP a possessor, like ′ D NP N PP complement of, which D the student’s book. takes an NP complement ’s book ′ D NP N′ P poems. • Notice that the higher the D is not a word, it’s PNP • So far all of the specifier N′ N book of positions are empty. the little suffix-like N′ N particle (clitic) ’s. student N poems 2 A real live X-bar structure A real live X-bar structure DP • Notice that anything that DP • This includes the counts as a “DP” (that is student’s book, which ′′′ basically a noun phrase ′′′ DP D DP D counts as a DP too (as with an article, like the the structure to the left D′ D NP student or a happy D′ D NP indicates). ’s millionaire) can go into ’s N′ N′ D NP the first slot. D NP – The student’s book’s the the cover was torn. N′ N – The woman from N′ N book Australia’s book. book – The student’s book’s N N – The storekeeper we met cover’s title art was student last week’s book. student mesmerizing. X-bar parameters X-bar parameters • Languages overwhelmingly tend to use the same • Compare Japanese, which has the reverse property. ordering in all of their X-bar structures. That is, In Japanese the object precedes the verb, objects complements follow the head (in English, say), precede postpositions, nouns follow relative clauses whether the head is a verb (eat lunch), a preposition (e.g., that I read book). (in class), a noun (book that I read). • Not every language for every XP, but strong tendency. XP • “Head parameter” XP Specifier X′ Specifier X′ X Complement Complement X Clause structure Clause structure • Across languages, clauses are believed to have • Below (inside) the CP, there is a phrase which for a long basically the same underlying structure. time syntacticians called IP (Inflection phrase), which has • At the top of the structure, there is a the subject in its specifier and has the tense and agreement “complementizer” phrase that is realized by inflection in its head (like the past tense or 3sg present elements like that, or if: suffixes), or modals like will or must or auxiliaries like be or – I said [that [John left]]. have. This is the “tense slot” I was talking about when we – I asked [if [John left]]. talked about verb-raising. IP • A complementizer heads a CP, and takes – John will leave. I′ essentially a whole sentence as its complement. – John has eaten. John I… will 3 CP Clause structure C′ Clause structure C AgrP • However, there is reason to believe based on a lot of that • Below the TP, there is a Agr′ syntactic work over the past 10 years that actually tense DP VP (verb phrase) which and agreement are separate things, and that they each Agr TP generally contains the need to have their own position in the clause structure. John verb and any object. All T′ • So, the Infl phrase was “split” into two phrases, a together… T VP • This is pretty much Tense Phrase (TP) and an Agreement Phrase (AgrP), will and their duties were split up as well. V′ what is assumed to be • The subject is in the specifier of AgrP. the basic clause VDPstructure across • T is where modals (will, must) and tense are initially eat languages: (i.e. before they move anywhere if they do). lunch CP-AgrP-TP-VP. CP C′ Movement Movement C AgrP that • Under certain conditions, • As discussed before, this kind of movement (for Agr′ DP things move around in the example, V moving to T) happens in all sentences in a sentence. Agr TP language, for example French. John • In questions, T usually ′ • Under the MP, this is a property of T. In some T moves to C. languages T requires verb movement, in some – Will John eat lunch? T VP languages it doesn’t. will • In French, V moves to T. • This is considered to be a (morphological) property of V′ – Jean (ne) mange pas du T. It is part of learning the “words” that can be used in chocolat. VDP the T node of a sentence in a language. There is eat something about these words (like for example, that lunch they are affixes) that requires a verb. Functional categories Functional categories in L1A • To reiterate, functional categories (T, Agr, D, P) • There is some debate concerning L1A and are taken to be where the parameters that children’s use of functional categories. differentiate languages are • Kids start out saying sentences that tend to • For example, for T we can see that it is either of omit words we associate with functional the “needs a verb” type (French) or not categories—they often do not inflect their (English). verbs (for tense or agreement, a property of T), • Functional categories and their properties are a they often do not use determiners (D). crucial component of the adult native-speaker • Some researchers take this to be evidence that knowledge of a language. kids learn lexical categories first and only later move on to using functional categories. 4 Functional categories in L1A Functional categories in L1A • Over the past decade or so, it has become • In French, recall, verbs often move up to T. clearer, however, that kids do seem to have We know this, for example, because the access to (knowledge of) functional verb appears before the negative marker pas categories and their properties. There is a (assumed to mark the boundary between TP and VP). fairly dramatic example of this we can observe in both French and German. • Nonfinite verbs (like to go in I want to go) generally occur after the negative marker pas. (I want not to go). – Ne pas regarder la télé consolide l’esprit critique. Functional categories in L1A Functional categories in L1A • That is, only tensed (finite) verbs move up • However, what is interesting is that once to T.