The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement

Syntax and pragmatics

Jeannette Schaeffer | Ben Gurion University of Negev

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027224903 (Eur) | EUR 95.00

ISBN 9781556198403 (USA) | USD 143.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027299116 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

This book offers a new contribution to the debate concerning the “real time acquisition” of grammar in First Language Acquisition Theory. It combines detailed and quantitative observations of object placement in Dutch and Italian child language with an analysis that makes use of the Modularity Hypothesis. Real time development is explained by the interaction between two different modules of language, namely syntax and pragmatics. Children need to build up knowledge of how the world works, which includes learning that in communicating with someone else, one must realize that speaker and hearer knowledge are always independent. Since the syntactic feature referentiality can only be marked if this (pragmatic) distinction is made, and assuming that certain types of object placement (such as scrambling and clitic placement) are motivated by referentiality, it follows that the relevant syntactic mechanism is dependent on the prior acquisition of a pragmatic distinction.

[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 22] 2000. xii, 187 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 21 October 2008

https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.22

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures | p. ix

Acknowledgements | p. xi

1. Introduction | p. 1

2. Object Scrambling and Cliticization | p. 15

3. Methodology | p. 51

4. Results and Discussion | p. 67

5. Some Further Results | p. 103

6. Conclusion | p. 121

Appendix | p. 125

Subject Index | p. 183

“An excellent discussion of the syntax and pragmatics involved in children's acquisition of direct object scrambling (in Dutch) and direct object clitic placement (in Italian), two phenomena, scrambling and cliticization, that Schaeffer relates to one another.”

Kleanthes Grohmann, University of Cypres, in Language Vol.80(4), 2005

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