Adjunct control and the poverty of the stimulus
Availability vs. evidence
Subject control in non-finite adjuncts is
observed across languages (as in ‘John called Mary after drawing a
picture’). Research on the acquisition of adjunct control has
generally focused on the relevant grammatical components and when
they are acquired. This paper considers these components in the
context of the linguistic input to ask how control in adjuncts is
acquired. Although adjunct control is available in the input, the
instances themselves do not provide evidence for abstract syntactic
relations. Implications are considered for linguistic dependencies
and the evidence in the input.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.What is evidence?
- 2.1Considerations for the input
- 2.1.1The input: Timeframe
- 2.1.2The input: Sources of evidence
- 2.1.3The input: Signal to noise
- 2.2Considerations for grammatical competence
- 3.Availability
- 4.Evidence
- 4.1Direct observation
- 4.1.1Attachment height
- 4.1.1.1Lexical learning (Cairns et al. 1994)
- 4.1.1.2Adjunct misanalysis (Adler 2006)
- 4.1.1.3Binding across clauses
- 4.1.2C-command by the controller
- 4.2Generalization from similar structures
- 4.2.1Complement control
- 4.2.2Finite adjuncts
- 5.Universal grammar
- 5.1Role of the input
- 5.1.1Finiteness
- 5.1.2Complementizers
- 5.2Competence and acquisition
- 5.3Predictions for the input
- 6.Discussion
- 6.1Other types of control
- 6.2Other dependencies
- 6.3Role of the argument of the poverty of the stimulus
- 6.4Conclusion
-
Notes
-
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