Hierarchy of Two-Place Predicates

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Masahiko and Tom,

      I am still not sure I understand Masahiko's question, but the claim that children make errors such as "I'm hitting on something" is an interesting one.  My own child language error filters are telling me that errors of this type are quite rare.  However, I can they could arise occasionally from analogy with constructions found in the input such as "I'm pushing on the table" and "My feet don't touch to the ground" could arise from "My feet don't reach to the ground."
    This level of analogic productivity is common, although the specific types mentioned here would seem rare, probably because of competition from the stronger pattern in English for placing the direct object after the verb.
     But Masahiko also seems to suggest that children are in search of some method of disambiguating subject and object.  But English has already provided them with this through its consistent and reliable placement of the subject or agent before the verb and the object after the verb.  I think one would have to turn to a language with freer word order to find any evidence that children are themselves in search of new methods for marking case.  
     Analyses of the introduction of new case markings and wider issues such as Differential Object Marking (DOM) typically involve historical processes, not particular child language errors or creations.  This is not to say that children have no role in historical change, but I doubt that they are the main contributors.

-- Brian MacWhinney

On Aug 16, 2012, at 11:08 AM, Tom Roeper <roeper at linguist.umass.edu> wrote:

> I think children are more likely to omit the prepositions and say things like:
>     I cried stairs/ I'm going beach
> even in places where they are called for.  There is some discussion of this
> in my book The Prism of Grammar--MIT
> 
> Tom Roeper
> 
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 10:39 PM, Masahiko Minami <mminami at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> Tasaku Tsunoda proposed a classification of predicates, in various versions, and its latest (1985) has been referred to as the hierarchy of two-place predicates (‘HTPP’).
> 
>  
> 
> My understanding of HTPP is as follows:
> 
>  
> 
> When a two-place predicate R(x,y) is used to describe an event involving two participants, usually an agent and a patient, it is of utmost importance to avoid ambiguity as to which noun phrase corresponds to the first argument x (the agent) and which to the second argument y (the patient). For this purpose, case can be used to mark one of the arguments. If one argument is case marked, this already suffices for the purpose of disambiguation. Thus, from the distinguishing perspective, there is no need to case mark both arguments. Neither would it be necessary to case mark the one and only argument of a one-place (intransitive) predicate.
> 
>  
> 
> In Tsunoda’s recent paper, he presents the following:
> 
> I’m hitting on something.
> 
> My feet don’t touch to the ground.
> 
>  
> 
> While the above examples do not involve the preposition on or to in adults’ English, children may initially include these prepositions but later abandon these prepositions, in accordance with the grammar of adults’ English.
> 
> 
> 
> If there are papers referring to such phenomena, please let me know.
> 
> 
> 
> Masahiko Minami
> 
> 

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