Functional categories and null subjects in Hebrew and child Hebrew.
Item
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Title
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Functional categories and null subjects in Hebrew and child Hebrew.
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Identifier
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AAI9720087
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identifier
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9720087
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Creator
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Elisha, Iris.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Virginia Valian
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics
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Abstract
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This dissertation investigates the relation between the functional heads TP and AgrP and the use of overt and covert subjects across languages. This relation is first accounted for in Modern Hebrew, where both subject options are attested in different tense-person contexts. In a study of child Hebrew, 19 children ranging in age from 1;10 to 2;7 and in Mean Length of Utterance in Words from 1.40 to 3.01 were audiotaped in natural conversation. The study evaluates children's initial knowledge of functional categories, and determines when and how Hebrew speaking children acquire the grammatical constraints underlying their mixed language. The Minimal Competence model argues that children are endowed with a minimal structure that consists of categories, e.g., TP, and features, e.g., (finite), which are cross-linguistically selected. Since all innate categories are licensed directly by having content, overt subjects are not required to license them indirectly. AgrP is not a cross-linguistic category, requiring children to learn whether their target is of the agreeing type. That learning occurs at the one-word stage in Hebrew. At the combinatorial stage, two distinct stages in the present data are observed: above MLUW 2.0, children show full competence of the mixed system in Hebrew. Observable development is attributed to performance and pragmatic factors. Below MLUW 2.0, children need to set Agr strength and determine which AgrP is projected in different structures. As early as Group I, all children distinguish between null subject contexts (producing less than 30% subjects in verbal utterances) and non-null-subjects contexts (producing on average more than 70% subjects). Yet, individual variation in Group I shows that production of subjects in non-null contexts is not uniform. The results indicate that children are attuned to inflectional affixation, specifically to tense and person, in producing sentences with and without subjects. The children who acquired the correct interaction between the matrices show the adult pattern as early as Group I; other children show a competence deficit by generalizing over the matrices in the wrong tense-person context. These findings are corroborated by cross-linguistic evidence.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
