Hierarchy of Two-Place Predicates

[William Snyder]

Dear Brian (and Tom and Masahiko),

This is a bit orthogonal to your larger discussion, but I'd like to
thank Brian for mentioning two points that I think are important and
not widely acknowledged.

First, regarding the actual frequency of error patterns:

>       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.

In my own work, too, I've found that it's extremely important to
*count*, and determine how often a given error pattern actually
occurs, relative to the child's opportunities to make the error. The
reason this is important is that we all have a natural sampling bias
to "catch" the error, and overlook the utterances where the child gets
it right. This is one of the big advantages of using CHILDES
transcripts of recorded speech (thanks Brian!), rather than relying on
the earlier approach of diary data, where you only saw the utterances
that caught the diarist's attention. (I'm concerned that some of
Masahiko's examples might be of this type...)

Second, historical change:

> [...] 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.

Yes. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I think there's a widespread idea that
children make countless errors of co-mission, and that these
sometimes, somehow, give rise to historical change in a language. In
my view (and perhaps Brian's too?) this is much too simplistic.

In my own work I find that children do a remarkably good job of
figuring out, and closely matching, the grammar(s) of their
care-takers. Speech errors certainly occur, much as they do for
adults, but I'm not as yet convinced that these play a major role in
language change.

- William

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