This chapter reports on a study investigating three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian (Tromsø). It is shown that, although verb-second (V2) word order is attested early in non-subject-initial declaratives and questions, the children produce non-target-consistent word order in these constructions at an early stage, failing to move pronominal subjects past negation or an adverb. This is analyzed within a split-CP model which also assumes the existence of two subject positions in the IP domain, a high one for informationally given subjects and a lower one for subjects conveying new information. A pragmatic account of the child data is considered, but rejected in favour of an economy-based analysis which includes factors such as input frequency and complexity.
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Poletto, Cecilia
2013. Leopard spot variation: What dialects have to say about variation, change and acquisition. Studia Linguistica 67:1 ► pp. 165 ff.
RINGSTAD, Tina & Marit WESTERGAARD
2023. Children’s acquisition of word order variation: A study of subject placement in embedded clauses in Norwegian. Journal of Child Language► pp. 1 ff.
SCHAEFFER, JEANNETTE, MEREL VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN & AVA CREEMERS
2018. Article choice, theory of mind, and memory in children with high-functioning autism and children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics 39:1 ► pp. 89 ff.
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Waldmann, Christian
2014. The Acquisition of Neg-V and V-Neg Order in Embedded Clauses in Swedish: A Microparametric Approach. Language Acquisition 21:1 ► pp. 45 ff.
Westergaard, Marit
2008. Acquisition and change: On the robustness of the triggering experience for word order cues. Lingua 118:12 ► pp. 1841 ff.
WESTERGAARD, MARIT
2009. Usage-based vs. rule-based learning: the acquisition of word order inwh-questions in English and Norwegian. Journal of Child Language 36:5 ► pp. 1023 ff.
Westergaard, Marit
2011. Subject positions and information structure: the effect of frequency on acquisition and change. Studia Linguistica 65:3 ► pp. 299 ff.
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