<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered)">
<title>Re: Competence vs. Performance: Summary</title>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Helvetica;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{margin-right:0cm;
margin-left:0cm;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle17
{font-family:Arial;
color:navy;}
@page Section1
{size:595.3pt 841.9pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=blue>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>John,</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I don’t see how your example shows
any support for the necessity of the competence-performance distinction. We
have known for a long time that children don’t like to use relative
clauses that modify main clause subjects. If your point is that children rarely
hear them, then your data show that they also rarely use them, so at best,
their ‘competence’ is shaky, as indeed your one example from a
child suggests. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>As for how probabilistic approaches might
explain the acquisition of these structures, there is actually a lot of more
recent evidence showing that children’s acquisition of relative clauses
is affected by usage patterns. Holger Diessel has carefully considered this
issue in a number of publications (see references below), and some of mine and
my colleagues’ work has shown quite subtle effects of frequency in
experimental settings. So when you say that the lack of subject modifying RCs
in children’s speech reflects the pragmatic factors, I would
wholeheartedly agree that the pragmatics of conversation dictate what the children
are hearing, but that it is precisely because the children don’t hear
this particular form that they acquire it late. Further to this, I don’t
think there have been any experimental studies that have shown very young
children to be fully competent with this particular form, whatever the criteria
for full competence may be. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>This brings me, I guess, to the crux of
the issue – defining what competence actually is, for we have to make any
judgement on the nature of competence from performance data.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Best wishes,</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Evan</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>REFERENCES </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Diessel, H., & Tomasello, M. (2000).
The development of relative clauses in English. Cognitive Linguistics, 11, 131 –
151.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Diessel, H. (2004). The acquisition of
complex sentences. Cambridge: CUP.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Kidd, E., Brandt, S., Lieven, E., &
Tomasello, M. (2007). Object relatives made easy: A crosslinguistic comparison
of the constraints influencing young children’s processing of relative
clauses. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 860 – 897.</span></font></p>
<div>
<p><font size=2 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
color:navy'>_________________________________<br>
Dr Evan Kidd<br>
Lecturer in Psychology<br>
School of Psychological Sciences<br>
University of Manchester<br>
Oxford Road M13 9PL<br>
Manchester, UK<br>
Ph: +44 (0) 161 275 2578<br>
Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 8587<br>
<a href="http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/108727">http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/108727</a><br>
__________________________________</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1>
</span></font></div>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
info-childes@mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes@mail.talkbank.org] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>john limber<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> 17 October 2007 12:30<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Matthew Saxton; info-childes@mail.talkbank.org<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Cc:</span></b> john limber<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: Competence vs.
Performance: Summary</span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=4 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Verdana'><br>
On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" <M.Saxton@ioe.ac.uk>
wrote:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“No-one has stepped
forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer
supportive references.”</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=4 face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:13.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>OK— try this—with
references too!<br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it
hardly needs defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization,
latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more or
less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional performance.
<br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> Does anyone really doubt that the language one
observes is but a subset of the language one might observe under such and such
conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary and
ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, to toss
out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds like a lame return
to behaviorism. <br>
<br>
Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex sentences (Limber,
1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two to three year old
children’s utterances I observed -- a lack of relative clauses attached
to subject NPs. <br>
<br>
Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those structures
in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic competence? Here’s
the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)—which curiously in connection
with this current discussion, involves pragmatics.<br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'>“Inferences about linguistic competence in children
are typically based on spontaneous speech. <br>
This poses a problem since we know that other factors
are also involved in speech production. <br>
Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs
do not use complex subject NPs. Is<br>
this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or
simply a reflection of pragmatic factors? <br>
Evidence presented here suggests that children probably
do not need complex subjects. An<br>
extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object
position indicates that pragmatics may <br>
account for the distribution of clauses in their
speech. A similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to
conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the
nature of spontaneous speech.”<br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
</span></font><font face=Verdana><span style='font-family:Verdana'>In fact, in
all my data of several thousand utterances of children and adults, only TWO
subject NPs showed up—one shaky example from a three-year old and another
from an adult. The probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP
is, from my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two:<br>
<br>
Adult: “</span></font><font face=Helvetica><span style='font-family:Helvetica'>Well
these buses that I've had today have been really weird.”<br>
<br>
Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't
want me to open it. “<br>
<br>
I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition would
handle this?<br>
<br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Helvetica><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
font-family:Helvetica'><br>
<br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T.
Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp.
169-186). New York: Academic Press.<br>
<a href="http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf">http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and pragmatics in the
speech of young children. Journal of Child Language, 3, 309-318.<br>
<a href="http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf">http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf</a><br>
<br>
John Limber<br>
University of New Hampshire<br>
Durham NH<br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Helvetica><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
font-family:Helvetica'><br>
<br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
</span></font><font size=4 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:13.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
<br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Helvetica><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
font-family:Helvetica'>I think that the girl ... that's here ... <br>
doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. <br>
<br>
Well these <br>
buses that I've had today have been really weird. <br>
<br>
<br>
</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>