28.4519, Diss: Language Acquisition; Hebrew: Rachel Margot Eitan: ''On the Interface of Information Structure and Word Order in Hebrew 'Give' Constructions: Evidence from Adult and Child Language''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4519. Mon Oct 30 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4519, Diss: Language Acquisition; Hebrew: Rachel Margot Eitan: ''On the Interface of Information Structure and Word Order in Hebrew 'Give' Constructions: Evidence from Adult and Child Language''

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté,
                                   Michael Czerniakowski)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Sarah Robinson <srobinson at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2017 12:14:18
From: Rachel Eitan [amirgu at gmail.com]
Subject: On the Interface of Information Structure and Word Order in Hebrew 'Give' Constructions: Evidence from Adult and Child Language

 
Institution: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 
Program: Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics: Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2013 

Author: Rachel Margot Eitan

Dissertation Title: On the Interface of Information Structure and Word Order in 
Hebrew 'Give' Constructions: Evidence from Adult and Child
Language 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition

Subject Language(s): Hebrew (heb)


Dissertation Director(s):
Jeannette Schaeffer
Nomi Erteschik-Shir

Dissertation Abstract:

This study investigates the order of the verbal complements of the Hebrew
ditransitive verb latet ('give') in adult and child language and examines how
Information Structure affects the speaker’s choice between the two alternate
orders. In particular, we investigate how this construction is affected by
Information Structure considerations, namely the interpretation of the verbal
complements as either topic or focus, and the application of the relevant
strategies to encode them.

In an elicited production study, we systematically manipulated the
informational status of the post-verbal complements so that one is a topic and
the other is a focus. Participants were presented with pictures and short
stories depicting the action of giving. Then, they were asked to answer
wh-questions eliciting focus either on the Direct Object (DO) or the Indirect
Object (IO). We collected data from thirty Hebrew speaking adults and hundred
and eighty Hebrew-acquiring children between the ages 2;6-7;0. 

Our adult data demonstrate that the order of the complements and their overt
realization in Hebrew latet constructions are not optional but are determined
by the Information Structure of the utterance and obey the rules of Reinhart’s
(1995) Interface Theory. More specifically, our data reveal that although the
focused object could either precede the topical object or follow it, there is
a striking preference for unmarked focus in final position (in which focus is
assigned main stress by Cinque’s (1993) Nuclear Stress Rule) over the marked
stress-shift derivation in non-final position. In addition, the adult data
indicate that a topical object, but not a focused object, can be marked by
reduced forms of reference: a pronoun or omission. Overall, the adult data
provide the necessary basis for the investigation of the development of
Information Structure and the dative alternation in Hebrew child language. 

Our child data provide support for Erteschik-Shir's (1997) suggestion that
Information Structure is a component provided by Universal Grammar and thus,
children possess the required knowledge to identify and encode topic and focus
from a very early age (and probably innately). Our findings confirm that at
least from age 2;6 on, typically developing Hebrew-acquiring children are able
to distinguish between the Information Structure notions topic and focus. Our
data show that children abide by the adult rules of latet constructions in the
application of the Information Structure mechanisms available in Hebrew to
encode the topical and focused complements of latet. Furthermore, in contrast
to previous comprehension studies, our production data reveal that children do
not experience any difficulties in producing the marked order. This
substantiates Reinhart's Interface Theory, according to which stress-shift
operation is problematic for children only in comprehension, but not in
production. 

In sum, this study provides much needed psycholinguistic evidence from both
adult and child Hebrew for the claim that the ordering and expression of the
post-verbal complements in latet constructions are not optional but are
determined by Information Structure constraints.




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
            http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4519	
----------------------------------------------------------