A Developmental Investigation on Syntactic Constraint on Focus Assignment
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Previous studies reported that children made errors by identifying constituents outside of the c-command domain of only as focus. (Crain et al. 1992, 1994; Notley et al. 2009; Gualmini et al. 2003). In order to provide a more detailed picture of the developmental knowledge about the syntactic constraint, this study investigates how children and adults assign focus in sentences with post-verbal only preceding the two noun phrases connected by prepositions either about or to (i.e., NP_1 about NP_2 and NP_1 to NP_2). Only is associated with both NP_1 and NP_2 in sentences involving 'about' whereas it is associated with NP_2 alone in sentences involving 'to'. Using a Truth-Value Judgment task (Crain & Thornton 1998), I demonstrate that unlike adults, children have a strong tendency to treat two different constructions in the same way and prefer to associate only with the NP2 in general. The result indicates that children have a qualitatively different syntactic representation in terms of the c-command constraint.
Abstract
Previous studies reported that children made errors by identifying constituents outside of the c-command domain of only as focus. (Crain et al. 1992, 1994; Notley et al. 2009; Gualmini et al. 2003). In order to provide a more detailed picture of the developmental knowledge about the syntactic constraint, this study investigates how children and adults assign focus in sentences with post-verbal only preceding the two noun phrases connected by prepositions either about or to (i.e., NP_1 about NP_2 and NP_1 to NP_2). Only is associated with both NP_1 and NP_2 in sentences involving 'about' whereas it is associated with NP_2 alone in sentences involving 'to'. Using a Truth-Value Judgment task (Crain & Thornton 1998), I demonstrate that unlike adults, children have a strong tendency to treat two different constructions in the same way and prefer to associate only with the NP2 in general. The result indicates that children have a qualitatively different syntactic representation in terms of the c-command constraint.
참고문헌 (16)
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