GRS LX 700 English wh-questions Language Acquisition and What will John bake? Linguistic Theory Two components to forming a (main clause) wh-question (in English): Week 12. Move a wh-word to SpecCP. Acquirers and questions Move T to C (Subject-Aux Inversion—SAI) Question formation Wh-inversion→Wh-fronting Declarative: John will buy coffee. English, German: Both. What will John buy? Wh-inversion: What will John buy? Japanese Korean: neither. Wh-fronting: What will John buy? John will buy what? Yes/No-inversion: Will John buy coffee? Finnish: Wh-fronting only. What John will buy? Greenberg (1963): Unattested: Wh-inversion only. Wh-inversion implies Wh-fronting. *Will John buy what? Yes/No-inversion implies Wh-inversion. Y/N-inversion→Wh-inversion Universals and parameters English: Both Even if it’s not completely clear what accounts Will John buy coffee? What will John buy? for the implicational universals, inversion and wh-fronting do seem to be independent. Japanese: Neither John will buy coffee? John will buy what? A kid needs to learn what his/her language does in each domain. Lithuanian: Wh-inversion only. Wh-inversion implies Wh-fronting: Perhaps the only John will buy coffee? What will John buy? reason you’d move T to C is to get a [wh] feature Unattested: Y/N-inversion only. originally on T into a position where it can be checked by a wh-word in SpecCP (Wh-criterion, see Guasti). Will John buy coffee? What John will buy? Y/N-inversion implies Wh-inversion: ? 1 Kids get these parameters Kuczaj & Maratsos (1983) down early Guasti (2000): Adam, Eve, and Sarah pretty Form Abe Ben much never left wh-words in situ, and when Kids seem to they did it was generally in a (grammatical) echo Uninv Inv Uninv Inv learn question. can 2;5 2;11 2;6 2;10 auxiliaries Same with inversion, there seem to be very few is (cop) 2;7 3;1 2;4 2;8 one by one; (on the order of 1%) errors of non-inversion in are (cop) 2;9 3;0 2;7 2;10 they appear German, Italian, Swedish. is (aux) 3;0 3;0 2;7 3;1 at different Yet Bellugi (1971)—very famously—seemed to find something different in English… Stages: are (aux) 3;0 3;1 2;10 3;0 times. SAI in yes-no questions, not in wh-questions will 3;0 3;1 2;10 2;10 Notice this runs counter to Greenberg’s univeral. SAI in positive questions, not in negative questions. Kuczaj & Maratsos (1983) Kuczaj & Maratsos (1983) Form Abe Ben Each Form Abe Ben Only correctly Uninv Inv Uninv Inv auxiliary Uninv Inv Uninv Inv inverted can 2;5 2;11 2;6 2;10 seems be first can 2;5 2;11 2;6 2;10 verbs is (cop) 2;7 3;1 2;4 2;8 used outside is (cop) 2;7 3;1 2;4 2;8 (auxiliaries) are (cop) 2;9 3;0 2;7 2;10 of inversion are (cop) 2;9 3;0 2;7 2;10 appear in is (aux) 3;0 3;0 2;7 3;1 contexts, is (aux) 3;0 3;0 2;7 3;1 child speech are (aux) 3;0 3;1 2;10 3;0 only later in are (aux) 3;0 3;1 2;10 3;0 (no inversion will 3;0 3;1 2;10 2;10 inversions will 3;0 3;1 2;10 2;10 of main verbs) A famous non-result: SAI in A famous non-result: SAI in YNQs before SAI in whQs YNQs before SAI in whQs Problem is, seems to be true of Adam’s Adam: At a certain files, but not true generally… YNQs WhQs point, inversion Inv Uninv Inv Uninv appears in yes-no Several later studies with better sampling 3;0 0 1 0 3 questions—but show no identifiable stage where yes-no 3;5 198 7 9 22 inversion with wh- questions invert while wh-questions 3;8 33 5 questions is still don’t—in fact, even the frequency doesn’t infrequent. Soon go in one direction for all kids. afterwards, inversion is frequent for both types of questions. 2 Stromswold (1990, table 5.5) Conclusion really seems to be % of inversion WHQ vs.YNQ Kids will sometimes fail to invert. Child WH YN Child WH YN Kids will sometimes fail to invert more in Adam 88.3 96.6 Nathan 60.1 46.2 one construction (e.g., wh-questions) than Allison 85.7 100 Nina 98.5 93.9 in another (e.g., yes/no-questions), but April 91.7 94.1 Peter 92.1 98.5 which one gets the advantage seems to Eve 95.5 87.2 Ross 99.3 97 vary by kid. Mark 97.9 97.6 Sarah 92.9 91.9 Naomi 96.2 94.2 Shem 95.6 79 MEAN 93 93.7 SAI errors: doubling Doubling errors A double-auxiliary error, both an inverted Are the kids pronouncing a “loud trace” and an un-inverted auxiliary: of (head-)movement? (Are they moving Why did you did scare me? the auxiliary but failing to leave the trace How can he can look? unpronounced?) That would be interesting. A “double-tensing” error (where an Are they just forgetting what they are auxiliary moves to I but the verb surfaces trying to say midway through and with tense). “blending” two structures? (one with and What did you bought? one without movement) What did you did? Nakayama (1987) Inversion in negation Guasti, Thornton & Wexler (BUCLD 1995) The longer the subject is, the more likely a looked at doubling in negative questions. kid is to make a doubling error; the length of the VP makes no difference. Previous results (Bellugi 1967, 1971, Is [the boy who is watching Mickey] is happy? Stromswold 1990) indicated that kids tend Looks like blending, rather than the (more to invert less often in negative questions. interesting) “loud trace” idea… Common First: True? error type: Second: Why? Is [the boy who is watching M], is he happy? 3 GTW (1995) GTW (1995) Elicited negative questions… Kids got positive questions right for the I heard the snail doesn’t like some things to most part. eat. Ask him what. 88% of kids’ wh-questions had inversion There was one place Gummi Bear couldn’t eat 96% of kids’ yes-no questions had inversion the raisin. Ask the snail where. Except youngest kid (3;8), who had inversion only 42% of the time. One of these guys doesn’t like cheese. Ask the snail who. Kids got negative declaratives right without exception, with do-support and I heard that the snail doesn’t like potato chips. Could you ask him if he doesn’t? clitic n’t. GTW (1995) GTW (1995) Kids got lots of negative wh-questions wrong. But kids got negative subject wh-questions right. Aux-doubling which one doesn’t like his hair messed up? (4;0) What kind of bread do you don’t like? (3;10) …as well as how-come questions. How come the dentist can’t brush all the teeth? (4;2) Neg & Aux doubling Why can’t she can’t go underneath? (4;0) Re: Not structure No I to C raising (inversion) Why can you not eat chocolate? (4;1) Where he couldn’t eat the raisins? (4;0) Kids only do this with object and adjunct wh- questions—if kids just sometimes prefer not instead of Not structure n’t, we would expect them to use it just as often with Why can you not eat chocolate? (4;1) subject wh-questions. GTW (1995) GTW (1995) So, in sum: The kids’ errors all seem to have the character of Kids get positive questions right keeping negation inside the IP. What did he didn’t wanna bring to school? (4;1) Kids get negative declaratives right What she doesn’t want for her witch’s brew? (3;8) Kids get negative subject questions right. Why can you not eat chocolate? (4;1) Kids get negative how-come questions right. Why can’t she can’t go underneath? (4;3) Kids make errors in negative wh- questions where inversion is required. GTW propose that this is a legitimate option; Where inversion isn’t required (or where citing Paduan (Italian dialect) as a language the sentence isn’t negative), they’re fine. doesn’t allow neg->C. 4 GTW (1995) “Auxless questions” Re: subject and how come questions… Guasti (2002) discusses questions like In a subject question, we don’t know that the Where Daddy go? (Adam 2;3) subject wh-word got out of IP—maybe kids left it What I doing? (Eve 2;0) in IP… heck, maybe even adults do. By making some assumptions (inherited from Who left? Rizzi), Guasti finds these problematic. Wh- *Who did leave? movement requires SAI, so what moved to C? How come questions don’t require SAI in the Specifically, wh-movement depends on SAI, which adult language{./?} happens because [+wh] starts on T and must move to C so it can be in a Spec-head relation with the wh- How come John left? word in SpecCP. Also: subject questions need no *How come did John leave? inversion on this story. Auxless questions Early, early wh-questions Auxless questions are relatively common among There may be an early “formulaic” stage where wh-questions in the 2-4 age range. kids ask questions by just asking “Wh(’s) NP?”.