The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar (Language Acquisition & Language Disorders)

322 Pages·2004·2.34 MB·English

by  Gunloeg Josefsson

<DOCINFOAUTHOR""TITLE"TheAquisitionofSwedishGrammar"SUBJECT"LanguageAcquisition&LanguageDisorders,Volume33"KEYWORDS""SIZEHEIGHT"220"WIDTH"150"VOFFSET"4">
TheAquisitionofSwedishGrammar
Language Acquisition & Language Disorders
Volumesinthisseriesprovideaforumforresearchcontributingtotheoriesof
languageacquistion(firstandsecond,childandadult),languagelearnability,
languageattritionandlanguagedisorders.
SeriesEditors
HaraldClahsen LydiaWhite
UniversityofEssex McGillUniversity
EditorialBoard
MelissaF.Bowerman LuigiRizzi
MaxPlanckInstitutfürPsycholinguistik,Nijmegen UniversityofSiena
KatherineDemuth BonnieD.Schwartz
BrownUniversity UniversityofHawaiiatManao
WolfgangU.Dressler AntonellaSorace
UniversitätWien UniversityofEdinburgh
NinaHyams KarinStromswold
UniversityofCaliforniaatLosAngeles RutgersUniversity
JürgenM.Meisel JürgenWeissenborn
UniversitätHamburg UniversitätPotsdam
WilliamO’Grady FrankWijnen
UniversityofHawaii UtrechtUniversity
MabelRice
UniversityofKansas
Volume33
TheAquisitionofSwedishGrammar
EditedbyGunlögJosefsson,ChristerPlatzackandGiselaHåkansson
The Aquisition of
Swedish Grammar
Editedby
Gunlög Josefsson
Christer Platzack
Gisela Håkansson
LundUniversity
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
TM Thepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirements
8
ofAmericanNationalStandardforInformationSciences–Permanence
ofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials,ansiz39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
TheaquisitionofSwedishgrammar /editedbyGunlögJosefsson,Christer
Platzack,GiselaHåkansson.
p. cm.(LanguageAcquisition&LanguageDisorders,issn
0925–0123;v.33)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Swedishlanguage--Grammar.2.Swedishlanguage--Acquisition.I.
Josefsson,Gunlög.II.Platzack,Christer,1943-III.Håkansson,Gisela.IV.
Series.
PD5107.A27 2004
439.7’01-dc22 2003062998
isbn9027252920(Eur.)/1588114570(US)(Hb;alk.paper)
©2003–JohnBenjaminsB.V.
Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyform,byprint,photoprint,microfilm,or
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Table of contents
1. Introduction 1
GunlögJosefssonandChristerPlatzack
2. Swedishlanguagelearnercorpora 23
GiselaHåkansson
3. Theacquisitionoftense 31
LisaChristensen
4. Wordformation 75
IngmarieMellenius
5. Inputandoutput:SentencepatternsinChildandAdultSwedish 95
GunlögJosefsson
6. TheVerbPhrase 135
ChristerPlatzack
7. Non-targetstructuresandnon-targetusesinChildandAdult
Swedish 155
GunlögJosefsson
8. Nominalphrases 195
UteBohnacker
9. TheacquisitionofSwedishwh-questions 261
LynnSantelmann
Index 309

<TARGET"intro"DOCINFOAUTHOR"GunlögJosefssonandChristerPlatzack"TITLE"Introduction"SUBJECT"LanguageAcquisition&LanguageDisorders,Volume33"KEYWORDS""SIZEHEIGHT"220"WIDTH"150"VOFFSET"4">
Chapter 1
Introduction
GunlögJosefssonandChristerPlatzack
1.1 Background
AlthoughtheScandinavianlanguageshaveplayedanimportantroleasresearch
objectinthedevelopmentofgenerativegrammarduringthelasttwentyyears,
they have not been a prominent subject for studies of language acquisition
withinthisresearchparadigm.Swedishisnoexception.Thereareahandfulof
detailed studies of the acquisition of particular parts of Swedish grammar,
presentedinpaperse.g.byUteBohnacker,GiselaHåkansson,GunlögJosefsson,
ChristerPlatzack,andLynnSantelmann,butthereissofarnocomprehensive
overview of the results. In this volume we have assembled nine chapters
addressing different aspects of the acquisition of Swedish, all of which are
writtenexclusivelyforthisvolume.Mostofthestudiesdealwiththeacquisition
ofvariouspartsofSwedishsyntax,butthereisalsoachapteronthedevelop-
mentofthesemanticsoftense.Inadditiontoapresentationofthefollowing
chaptersthisintroductorychapterincludesashortgrammarofSwedish,where
themostimportantdifferenceswithregardtoEnglisharehighlighted.
1.2 ASwedishmini-grammar
1.2.1 Introduction
Swedish is a Scandinavian language, most closely related to Norwegian and
Danish.Inshortitcouldbecharacterizedashavingafairlyrestrictedwordorder,
arelativelysimpleverbalinflectionsystem,andamorecomplexnominalinflection
system.Compoundingisahighlyproductivewordformationprocess.Ofthe
mostprominentsyntacticfeatureswemightmentiontheverbsecondquality—
not more than one constituent may precede the tensed verb —, obligatory
subjects,andtheabsenceofsubject–verbagreement.LikeEnglish,Swedishisa
2 GunlögJosefssonandChristerPlatzack
VOlanguage.Pronounsbutnotcommonnounsareinflectedforcase.Thetwo
examplesin(1)aresemanticallyequivalentbutpragmaticallydifferent:
(1) Nu läserdu ensvensk mening. Du läsernu ensvensk mening.
nowreadyoua Swedishsentence(cid:2)(cid:2)youreadnowa Swedishsentence
‘YouarereadingaSwedishsentencenow.’
AshortoverviewofSwedishsyntaxfollowsbelow.Themostimportantaspects
oftheinflectionalsystemarepresentedinSection1.2.2,sententialwordorder
is presented in Section1.2.3, and the word order of noun phrases (phrases
headedbyanoun)inSection1.2.4.Section1.2.5givesashortintroductionto
themainprinciplesofwordformation.
1.2.2 Inflection
1.2.2.1(cid:3)Theverb
TheSwedishverbisinflectedfortense,butdoesnotagreewiththesubject,nor
doesitinflectforsubjunctivemoodoraspect(thoughafewverbshaveretained
asubjunctiveformfromearlierstagesofthelanguage).See(2).Theinfinitive
formisdistinctfromthetensedforms,usuallyendingin-a,see(3).
(2) a. Jag/du /han/vi /ni /de hoppar.
I /you.sg/he /we/you.pl/theyjump.pres
‘Iamjumping.Youarejumping.Heisjumping’. etc.
b. Jag/du /han/vi /ni /de hoppade.
I /you.sg/he /we/you.pl/theyjumped.past
‘I/you/he/we/you/theyjumped.’
(3) a. Omhanhoppar så får jagocksåhoppa.
if he jump.presthenmayI also jump.inf
‘Ifhejumps,Imayjumptoo.’
b. Du måstespringa fort.
you.sgmust run.inffast
‘Youhavetorunfast.’
Theimperativeformishomophonoustotheinfinitiveformforthefirstweak
conjugationverbs,butlackstheending-aintheotherconjugations,viz.Hopp-
a!‘Jump!’butSpring!‘Run!’Justliketheothergermanicalnguages,Swedishhas
so-calledstrongverbsandweakverbs,whichinflectdifferently.
Thepresenttenseendsin-rprecededby-a-inthefirstweakconjugation
(kast-a-r (throw-pres) ‘throw’), -e- in the second weak conjugation (köp-e-r
Introduction 3
(buy-pres) ‘buy’), and a monosyllabic stem ending in a vowel in the third
weak conjugation (tro-r (believe-pres) ‘believe’). In the present tense of the
strongverbs,-risprecededby-e-(flyg-e-r(fly-pres)‘fly’)orbyamonosyllabic
stemendinginavowel(gå-r(go-pres)‘go’).InspokenSwedish,thefinal-rin
endingsisoftenomitted.Aneffectofthisisthatthepresenttense,infinitive
and imperative of verbs of the first conjugation are pronounced identically,
leadingtoproblemsespeciallyindeterminingthefrequencyoftensedverbsin
thespeechofyoungchildren.
Like the other Germanic languages, Swedish forms the past tense with a
dental suffix (weak conjugation) as in kasta-de (throw-past) ‘threw’, köp-te
(buy-past)‘bought’,tro-dde(believe-past)‘believed’,orachangeinthestem
vowel(strongconjugation,flög(fly-past)‘flew’,gick(go-past)‘went’.
The perfective auxiliary ha ‘have’, combines with a special non-agreeing
verb form called the supine, which always ends in -t, see (4). The supine is
morphologicallyrelatedtothepastparticiple,butdiffersincertainrespects,see
Platzack (1989). Unlike the supine the past participle, like the adjective (Sec-
tion1.2.2.4),agreeswiththesubjectinnumberandgender,see(5):
(4) Hanharkommit. Vi har kommit.
he hascome.sup(cid:2)(cid:2)wehavecome.sup
‘Hehasarrived.’ ‘Wehavearrived’
(5) Hanärkommen. Vi är komna.
he is come.past.ptc.sg(cid:2)(cid:2)wearecome.past.ptc.pl
‘Hehasarrived.’ ‘Wehavearrived.’
Liketheinfinitiveandthetensedverbforms,thesupinecanalsobeinflectedfor
thepassivevoice(-s(cid:4)).Thisisneverpossibleforthepastparticiple:
(6) a. Huset harmålats rött.
house.defhaspainted.sup.passred
‘Thehousehasbeenpaintedred.’
b. Huset ärmålat rött/*målats rött.
house.defis painted.past.ptcred/*painted.past.ptc.passred
‘Thehouseispaintedred.’
Thefollowingtablegivesanoverviewoftheinflectionofverbsfromthefour
conjugations. The past participle is inflected for common gender singular.
(Swedishhastwogenders,commongenderandneuter,seebelow.).
As already mentioned, the passive is formed with an -s suffixed to the
inflectedform(thefinal-rinpresenttenseisdropped).Itmayalsobeformed
withauxiliarybli‘become’+pastparticiple,orvara‘be’+pastparticiple.