Hierarchy of Two-Place Predicates

[Tom Roeper]

Dear Brian and Masahiko---

     Assuming a role for English is the classic acquisition error of
assuming that children
already know what they have to learn.  I take it that it is precisely the
question of what
first steps children take when they do not know if they are in a free word
order language
or not that we have to characterize.  Although it may seem that the child
must simply
connect: John eats hotdog
to context and the answer is clear, the child will also hear: the hotdog
was eaten
    "here's your hotdog, now eat"
    "hotdogs you love"
and so forth.

Tom

On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Brian MacWhinney <macw at cmu.edu> wrote:

> 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
>>   ------------------------------
>>
>>
>  --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Info-CHILDES" group.
> To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> info-childes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>
>



-- 
Tom Roeper
Dept of Lingiustics
UMass South College
Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA
413 256 0390

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.
To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/info-childes/attachments/20120816/e2d3f301/attachment.htm>