The Acquisition of Syntactic Structure: Animacy and Thematic Alignment

338 Pages·2014·1.23 MB·English

by  Becker M.

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THE ACQUISITION OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE
Thisbookexplainsawell-knownpuzzlethathelpedcatalyzetheestablish-
ment of generative syntax: how children tease apart the different syntactic
structures associated with sentences like John is easy/eager to please. The
answerliesinanimacy:takingthepremisethatsubjectsareanimate,thebook
arguesthatchildrencanexploittheoccurrenceofaninanimatesubjectasa
cuetoanon-canonicalstructure,inwhichthatsubjectisdisplaced(Thebook
iseasy/*eagertoread).Theauthorusesevidencefromarangeoflinguistic
subfields, including syntactic theory, typology, language processing, con-
ceptual development, language acquisition, and computational modeling,
exposing readers to these different kinds of data in an accessible way. The
theoreticalclaimsofthebookexpandthewell-knownhypothesesofSyntactic
andSemanticBootstrapping,resultingingreatercoverageofthecoreprinci-
plesoflanguageacquisition.Thisisamust-readforresearchersinlanguage
acquisition,syntax,psycholinguisticsandcomputationallinguistics.
misha becker is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics department at
theUniversityofNorthCarolina,ChapelHill,whereshehastaughtcourses
inlinguistictheoryandchildlanguageacquisitionsince2002.
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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS
GeneralEditors:p. austin,j. bresnan,b. comrie,
s. crain,w. dressler,c. j. ewen,r. lass,
d. lightfoot,k . rice,i. roberts,s. romaine,
n. v. smith
The Acquisition of Syntactic Structure
Animacy and Thematic Alignment
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Inthisseries
106 sharon inkelas and cheryl zoll:Reduplication:doublinginmorphology
107 susan edwards:Fluentaphasia
108 barbara dancygier and eve sweetser:Mentalspacesingrammar:
conditionalconstructions
109 hew baerman,dunstan brown and greville g. corbett:The
syntax–morphologyinterface:astudyofsyncretism
110 marcus tomalin:Linguisticsandtheformalsciences:theoriginsofgenerative
grammar
111 samuel d. epstein and t. daniel seely:Derivationsinminimalism
112 paul de lacy:Markedness:reductionandpreservationinphonology
113 yehuda n. falk:Subjectsandtheirproperties
114 p. h. matthews:Syntacticrelations:acriticalsurvey
115 mark c. baker:Thesyntaxofagreementandconcord
116 gillian catriona ramchand:Verbmeaningandthelexicon:afirstphase
syntax
117 pieter muysken:Functionalcategories
118 juan uriagereka:Syntacticanchors:onsemanticstructuring
119 d. robert ladd:Intonationalphonology,secondedition
120 leonard h. babby:Thesyntaxofargumentstructure
121 b. elan dresher:Thecontrastivehierarchyinphonology
122 david adger, daniel harbour and laurel j. watkins:Mirrorsand
microparameters:phrasestructurebeyondfreewordorder
123 niina ning zhang:Coordinationinsyntax
124 neil smith:Acquiringphonology
125 nina topintzi:Onsets:suprasegmentalandprosodicbehaviour
126 cedric boeckx, norbert hornstein and jairo nunes:Controlas
movement
127 michael israel:Thegrammarofpolarity:pragmatics,sensitivity,andthelogicof
scales
128 m. rita manzini and leonardo m. savoia:Grammaticalcategories:
variationinromancelanguages
129 barbara citko:Symmetryinsyntax:merge,moveandlabels
130 rachel walker:Vowelpatternsinlanguage
131 mary dalrymple and irina nikolaeva:Objectsandinformationstructure
132 jerrold m. sadock:Themodulararchitectureofgrammar
133 dunstan brown and andrew hippisley:Networkmorphology:a
defaults-basedtheoryofwordstructure
134 bettelou los,corrien blom,geert booij,marion elenbaas and ans
van kemenade:Morphosyntacticchange:acomparativestudyofparticlesand
prefixes
135 stephen crain:Theemergenceofmeaning
136 hubert haider:Symmetrybreakinginsyntax
137 josé a. camacho:Nullsubjects
138 gregory stump and raphael a. finkel:MorphologicalTypology:From
WordtoParadigm
139 bruce tesar:Output-DrivenPhonology:TheoryandLearning
140 asier alcázar and mario saltarelli:TheSyntaxofImperatives
141 becker:TheAcquisitionofSyntacticStructure:AnimacyandThematicAlignment
Earlierissuesnotlistedarealsoavailable
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THE ACQUISITION OF
SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE
ANIMACY AND
THEMATIC ALIGNMENT
MISHA BECKER
UniversityofNorthCarolina,ChapelHill
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UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom
PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork
CambridgeUniversityPresispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107007840
©MishaBecker2014
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2014
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyMPGPrintgroupLtd,Cambridge
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN 978-1-107-00784-0Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
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Contents
Listoffigures page ix
Listoftables xi
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Thesyntaxofdisplacingandnon-displacingpredicates 14
2.1 Raising-to-subjectandsubjectcontrol:seemvs.claim 16
2.1.1 Thestructureofraising 19
2.1.2 Thestructureofcontrol 25
2.1.3 Raising-to-objectandobjectcontrol:expectvs.persuade 28
2.2 Tough-constructions:easyvs.eager 30
2.2.1 Structureoftough-constructions 32
2.2.2 Relatedconstructions 36
2.2.3 Structureofcontroladjectiveconstructions 39
2.3 Unaccusativesandunergatives:arrivevs.dance 39
2.3.1 Asemantically-drivensyntacticdistinction 40
2.3.2 Formalrepresentationsofunaccusativity 42
2.4 Passive 45
2.4.1 Structureofpassive 46
2.4.2 Adifferentdisplacingpredicate 49
2.5 Thelearningproblem 52
3 Argumenthierarchies 61
3.1 TheAnimacyHierarchy 63
3.1.1 Linguisticeffectsofanimacy:morphosyntaxand
argumentstructure 64
3.1.2 Animacy, agency, degree of control, and teleological
capability 69
3.2 TheThematicHierarchy 75
3.2.1 Abriefhistoryofthematicroles 76
vii
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viii Contents
3.2.2 Formalaccountsofthematicroleassignment 79
3.3 Animacyandthematicrolesinopaqueconstructions 84
3.3.1 Raisingconstructionsacrosslanguages 86
3.3.2 Tough-constructionsacrosslanguages 103
3.4 Propertiesofderivedsubjects 109
3.4.1 Argument structure universals, and the “problem” of
ergativity 114
3.5 Alearningprocedure 119
3.6 Summary 124
4 Animacyandadultsentenceprocessing 126
4.1 Relativeclauses 129
4.1.1 Reducedrelativeclauses 129
4.1.2 Subjectvs.objectrelativeclauses 136
4.2 Processingofraisingandcontrol 139
4.2.1 Sentencecompletion 140
4.2.2 Novelverblearning 147
4.3 Psycholinguisticeffectsofanimacyonproductionofthepassive 153
4.4 Summary 155
5 Animacyandchildren’slanguage 156
5.1 Developmentoftheanimacyconcept 157
5.1.1 Featuralpropertiesofanimates 158
5.1.2 Behavioralpropertiesofanimates 159
5.1.3 Intentionalpropertiesofanimates 166
5.1.4 Furtherconceptualchange 169
5.1.5 Agency 172
5.1.6 Summary 173
5.2 Children’suseofanimacyinlearningargumentstructure 174
5.2.1 Thepowerandlimitationsofsemanticbootstrapping 179
5.2.2 ThepowerandlimitationsofSyntacticBootstrapping 186
5.3 Children’sacquisitionofdisplacingpredicates 190
5.3.1 Acquisitionofraisingandcontrol 192
5.3.2 Acquisitionoftough-constructions 208
5.3.3 Acquisitionofunaccusatives 227
5.3.4 Animacyandtheacquisitionofthepassive 235
5.4 Summary 242
6 Modelingtheacquisitionofdisplacingpredicates 245
6.1 Displacingpredicatesintheinputtochildren 250
6.2 Computationalmodelingoflanguageacquisition 256
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Contents ix
6.2.1 Learningasgeneralization 258
6.2.2 Restrictingthehypothesisspace 261
6.3 HierarchicalBayesianModels 265
6.3.1 Amodeloflearningraisingandcontrol 267
6.3.2 Amodeloflearningtough-constructions 276
6.3.3 Amodeloflearningunaccusativesandunergatives 279
6.4 Summaryofmodelingresults 281
7 Conclusionsandorigins 283
7.1 Originsofknowledgeoftheanimacydistinction 286
7.2 Origins of knowledge of linguistic animacy and displacing
predicates 289
7.3 Furtherquestions 296
Appendix 298
Bibliography 300