Part of
First Language Acquisition of Morphology and Syntax: Perspectives across languages and learnersEdited by Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, María Pilar Larrañaga and John Clibbens
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 45] 2008
► pp. 61–86
Edited by Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, María Pilar Larrañaga and John Clibbens
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 45] 2008
► pp. 61–86
3. Verb movement and subject placement in the acquisition of word order: Pragmatics or structural economy?
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.
Cited by
Cited by 16 other publications
Anderssen, Merete, Kristine Bentzen, Guro Busterud, Anne Dahl, Björn Lundquist & Marit Westergaard
2018. The acquisition of word order in L2 Norwegian: The case of subject and object shift. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 41:3 ► pp. 247 ff. 
Anderssen, Merete, Kristine Bentzen & Marit Westergaard
2011. The Acquisition of (Word Order) Variation. In Variation in the Input [Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, 39], ► pp. 1 ff.
Anderssen, Merete, Yulia Rodina, Roksolana Mykhaylyk & Paula Fikkert
2014. The Acquisition of the Dative Alternation in Norwegian. Language Acquisition 21:1 ► pp. 72 ff.
Anderssen, Merete & Marit Westergaard
2020. Word order variation in heritage languages. In Lost in Transmission [Studies in Bilingualism, 59], ► pp. 100 ff.
MYKHAYLYK, ROKSOLANA
2012. Factors contributing to child scrambling: evidence from Ukrainian. Journal of Child Language 39:3 ► pp. 553 ff.
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.
Schaeffer, Jeannette C., Merel van Witteloostuijn & Doatske de Haan
2014. Article choice in children with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Linguistics in the Netherlands 31 ► pp. 107 ff.
Sitaridou, Ioanna
2019. Chapter 6. Against V2 in Old Spanish. In The Determinants of Diachronic Stability [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 254], ► pp. 131 ff.
Ud Deen, Kamil
2017. The Acquisition of Morphology. In The Handbook of Psycholinguistics, ► pp. 567 ff.
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 in wh-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.
Westergaard, Marit
2014. Linguistic variation and micro-cues in first language acquisition. Linguistic Variation 14:1 ► pp. 26 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.