Cover not available
Part of
Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In honor of Stephen Crain
Edited by Mineharu Nakayama, Yi-ching Su and Aijun Huang
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 60] 2017
► pp. 165–196

Chapter 8
On scope interaction between subject QPs and negation in child grammar

 | Osaka University
 | Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
In adult grammar, languages such as English exhibit scope flexibility between the universal quantifier in the subject position and negation (Horn 1989; Jackendoff 1972), whereas languages such as Japanese and German do not (Lechner 1996; Miyagawa 2010, among others). This paper elucidates children’s ability to detect scope ambiguity between universal and existential quantifiers in subject position and negation in Japanese and German. Importantly, these two languages seem to share a property regarding the surface position of subjects in adult grammar: Ueda (2002), Saito (2011), among others argue that a subject is located in the CP domain in Japanese, and a preverbal subject in German is also widely assumed to be located in the CP domain, due to its V2 nature (den Besten 1983; Schwartz & Vikner 1996, among others). However, a detailed examination of the properties of subjects in these two languages reveals that their wide scope interpretation may be due to different mechanisms. It will be shown that although different restrictions are posed on Japanese and German reconstruction in adult grammar, these restrictions may be lifted in child grammar, which enables us to compare reconstruction effects that we may observe in Japanese and German child grammar. We conduct experiments, adopting the truth value judgment task (Crain & McKee 1985), in order to examine how Japanese and German children interpret sentences with a subject universal or existential quantifier and negation. We anticipate that Japanese and German children both allow scope ambiguity between universal and existential quantifiers in subject position and negation. The present study leads us to identify the position of the subject in Japanese child grammar.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Subject in adult Japanese grammar
    • 2.2Subject in adult German grammar
  • 3.Subject in child Japanese grammar
    • 3.1Argument ellipsis in adult Japanese grammar: Saito (2007)
    • 3.2Argument ellipsis in child Japanese grammar: Sugisaki (2007, 2009, 2013)
  • 4.Experiment 1: Scope of strong and weak QPs in Japanese
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Materials and procedure
    • 4.3Results
  • 5.Subject in Child German Grammar
  • 6.Experiment 2: Scope of strong and weak QPs in German
    • 6.1Participants
    • 6.2Materials and procedure
    • 6.3Results
      • 6.3.1German preschool children
      • 6.3.2Comparison between the two languages
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.60.09miy
References (49)
References
Aoun, J. & Li, Y.-H. A. 2003. Essays on the Representational and Derivational Nature of Grammar: The Diversity of Wh-constructions. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Beck, S. 1996. Quantified structures as barriers for LF-movement. Natural Language Semantics 4: 1–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, S. & Kim, S. 1997. On WH- and operator in Korean. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 6: 339–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, G., Fox, D. & Spector, B. 2012. Scalar implicature as a grammatical phenomenon. In Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Vol. 3, C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger & P. Porter (eds), 2297–2331. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Step by Step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik, R. Martin, D. Michaels & J. Uriagereka (eds), 89–155. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Crain, S. & McKee, C. 1985. The acquisition of structural restrictions on anaphora. In Proceedings of NELS 16, S. Berman, J.-W. Choe & J. McDonough (eds), 94–111. Amherst MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Cresti, D. 1995. Extraction and reconstruction. Natural Language Semantics 3: 79–122. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
den Besten, H. 1983. On the interaction of root transformations and lexical deletive rules. In On the Formal Syntax of the Westgermania [Linguistik Akuell/Linguistics Today 2], W. Abraham (ed.), 47–132. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drozd, K. F. 2001. Children’s weak interpretations of universally quantified questions. In Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development, M. Bowman & S.C. Levinson (eds),　340–376. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drozd, K.F. & van Loosbroek, E. 1999. Weak quantification, plausible dissent, and the development of children’s pragmatic role of pragmatic competence. In Proceeding of the 23rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield & C. Tano (eds), 184–195. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J.D. & Sag, I. 1982. Referential and quantificational indefinites. Linguistics and Philosophy 5: 355–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fukui, N. 1984. Studies on Japanese anaphora I: The adjunct subject hypothesis and ‘zibun’. Ms, MIT.Google Scholar
Goro, T. 2007. Scope Interpretation in First Language Acquisition. PhD dissertation, University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Hankamer, J. & Sag, I. 1976. Deep and surface anaphora. Linguistic Inquiry 7: 391–428.Google Scholar
Hattori, N., Ayano, S., Herrick, D., Stringer, D. & Sugisaki, K. 2006. Topics in child Japanese. In Proceedings of the 7th Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, Y. Otsu (ed.), 103–119. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar
Hasegawa, N. 2005. EPP materialized first, agree later: Wh-questions, subjects and MO-phrases. Scientific Approaches to Language, 4: 33–80.Google Scholar
Hayashishita, J.-R. 2004. Syntactic and Non-syntactic Scope. PhD dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Höhle, T. 1991. On reconstruction and coordination. In Representation and Derivation in the Theory of Grammar, H. Haider & K. Netter (eds), 139–197. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoji, H. 1985. Constraints and Configurational Structures in Japanese. PhD dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle.Google Scholar
Horn, L.R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, J. 1980. Lexical decomposition in Montague Grammar. Theoretical Linguistics 7: 121–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuno, S. 1983. Shin Nihon Bunpoo Kenkyuu (New Study of Japanese Grammar). Tokyo: Taishukan.Google Scholar
Lechner, W. 1996. On semantic and syntactic reconstruction. Wiener Linguistische Gazette 57–59, F. Menz & M. Prinzhorn (eds), 63–100. Vienna: University of Vienna, WLG.Google Scholar
1998. Two kinds of reconstruction. Studia Linguistica 52: 276–310. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
May, R. 1977. The Grammar of Quantification. PhD. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Meisel, J.M. 1986. Word order and case marking in early child language. Evidence from simultaneous acquisition of two first languages: French and German. Linguistics 24: 123–183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1990. INFL-ection: Subjects and subject-verb agreement. In Two First Languages. Early Grammatical Development in Bilingual Children, J. Meisel (ed), 237–298. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Meisel, J.M. & Müller, N. 1992. Finiteness and verb placement in early child grammars: Evidence from simultaneous acquisition of French and German in bilinguals. In The Acquisition of Verb Placement: Functional Categories and V2 Phenomena in Language Acquisition, J.M. Meisel (ed), 109–138. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miyagawa, S. 2010. Why Agree? Why Move? Unifying Agreement-based Discourse Configurational Languages. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Musolino, J. & Lidz, J. 2006. Why children are’t universally successful with quantification. Linguistics 44: 817–852. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nakanishi, K. 2008. Prosody and scope interpretations of the topic marker wa in Japanese. In Topic and Focus: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Intonation and Meaning, C.-M. Lee, M. Gordon & D. Buring (eds), 177–193. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Noveck, I.A. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition 78: 164–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rullmann, H. 1995. Maximality in the Semantics of Wh-construction. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
Safir, K. 1986. Relative clauses in a theory of binding and levels. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 663–689.Google Scholar
Saito, M. 2007. Notes on East Asian argument ellipsis. Language Research 43: 203–227.Google Scholar
2011. Two notes on feature inheritance: A parametric variation in the distribution of the EPP. Nanzan Linguistics 7: 43–61.Google Scholar
Sano, T. 2004. Scope relations of QP’s and scrambling in the acquisition of Japanese. In the Proceedings of GALA 2003, J. van Kampen & S. Baauw (eds), 421–431. Utrecht: LOT Publications.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B.D. & Vikner, S. 1996. The verb always leaves IP in V2 clauses. Parameters and Functional Heads: Essays in Comparative Syntax, A. Belletti & L. Rizzi (eds.), 11–62. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Shibata, Y. 2013. Obligatory wide scope as anti-reconstruction effects. In Proceedings of GLOW in Asia IX 2012: The poster session, N. Goto, K. Otaki, A. Sato & K. Takita (eds). <[URL]> (30 July 2015).Google Scholar
2014. Negative structure in Japanese. In Proceedings of the 37th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, S. Kwon (ed), 291–299. Philadelphia PA: Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
2015. Negative structure and object movement in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 24: 217–269. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sugisaki, K. 2007. The configurationality parameter in the Minimalist Program: A view from child Japanese. In Proceedings of the 31th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, H. Caunt-Nulton, S. Kulatilake & I-hao Woo (eds), 597–608. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
2009. Argument ellipsis in child Japanese: A preliminary report. In Proceedings of the 10th Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, Y. Otsu (ed), 291–312. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar
2013. Argument ellipsis in acquisition. Nanzan Linguistics 9: 147–171.Google Scholar
Szabolcsi, A. 2004. Positive polarity − negative polarity. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22: 409–452 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ueda, Y. 2002. Subject Positions, Ditransitives, and Scope in Minimalist Syntax: A Phase-based Approach. PhD dissertation, Kanda University of International Studies.Google Scholar
Viau, J., Lidz, J. & Musolino, J. 2010. Priming of abstract logical representations in 4-year-olds. Language Acquisition 17: 26–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yamashita, H. 2009. Toward a better understanding of Japanese scramblings: On the A- and A’-properties. In Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics, S. Tatevosov (ed), 303–315. Moscow: MAKS Press.Google Scholar