Skip to main content

Logical and Psychological Constraints on the Acquisition of Syntax

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics ((SITP,volume 10))

Abstract

The ultimate aim of the work presented here is to establish a veridical model of the acquisition process. My approach is to encircle the model by developing logical and psychological constraints on a model. What is left, what satisfies the constraints, are possible models of acquisition. Within the circle delimited by the constraints, I present a model which is also consistent with the linguistic input children receive, and consistent with their documented achievements. The first section of the paper establishes four constraints on acquisition; the short middle section presents data on young English speaker’s use of subjects; the final section introduces a model which fits the constraints and existing data.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  • Adams, M.: 1987, ‘From Old French to the theory of prodrop’, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 5, 1–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bach, E.: 1988, Parameters and languages, Language Processing and Acquisition Workshop, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, N. D. and Nelson, K. E.: 1984, ‘Recasting and related conversational techniques for triggering syntactic advances by young children’, First Language 5, 3–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berwick, R. and Weinberg, A. S.: 1984, The grammatical basis of linguistic performance: language use and acquisition, MIT Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bever, T. G., Carroll, J. M., and Hurtig, R.: 1976, ‘Analogy or Ungrammatical sequences that are utterable and comprehensible are the origins of new grammars in language acquisition and linguistic evolution’, in: T. G. Bever, J. J. Katz, D. T. Langendoen (eds.), An integrated theory of linguistic ability, pp. 149–182, T.Y. Crowell, Harper & Row, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bock, K.: 1989, ‘Closed class immanence in sentence production’, Cognition 31, 163–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N.: 1965, Aspects of the theory of syntax, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N.: 1981, Lectures on government and binding, Foris, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyams, N. M.: 1986, Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kayne, R.: 1988, Null subjects and clitic-climbing, Colloquium at CUNY Graduate Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langendoen, D. T. and Bever, T. G.: 1973, ‘Can a not unhappy person be called a not sad one?’ in S. Anderson and P. Kiparsky (eds.), A Festschrift for Morris Halle, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lasnik, H.: 1983, ‘On certain substitutes for negative data’, Proceedings of the Workshop on Learnability and Linguistic Theory, University of Western Ontario.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levelt, W. J. M. and Kelter, S.: 1982, ‘Surface form and memory in question answering’, Cognitive Psychology 14, 78–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maratsos, M.: 1982, ‘The child’s construction of grammatical categories’, in E. Wanner and L. R. Gleitman (eds.), Language acquisition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, K. E.: 1977, ‘Facilitating children’s syntax acquisition’, Developmental Psychology 13, 101–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyras, J.: 1988, Null subjects, children, and parameters: do we really need a null subject parameter?, unpublished A.B. thesis, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valian, V.: 1986, ‘Syntactic categories in the speech of young children’, Developmental Psychology 22, 562–579.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valian, V.: 1989a, Positive evidence, indirect negative evidence, parameter-setting, and language learning, unpublished manuscript, Hunter College, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valian, V.: 1989b, Children’s production of subjects: competence, performance, and the null subject parameter. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 28, 156–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valian, V.: 1990a, ‘Null subjects: a problem for parameter-setting models of language acquisition’, Cognition 35, 105–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valian, V.: 1990b, The linguistic status and didactic role of parental replies to children’s utterances, unpublished manuscript, Hunter College, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valian, V.: to appear, ‘Syntactic subjects in the early speech of American and Italian children’.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1990 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Valian, V. (1990). Logical and Psychological Constraints on the Acquisition of Syntax. In: Frazier, L., De Villiers, J. (eds) Language Processing and Language Acquisition. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3808-6_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3808-6_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-0660-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-3808-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics