Acquisition of the T and C system in clausal complements

In order to discover how children acquire the T(ense) and C(omplementizer) system, finite and nonfinite embedded clauses produced by children in the CHILDES database were studied. It was discovered that young children often delete to in nonfinite embedded clauses, and that they use that in the C position of finite imbedded clauses far less often than adults do. By adapting Wexler's (1998) theory of optional infinitives to a Pesetsky and Torrego (2001, 2002) framework, I show that the facts about both finite and nonfinite embedded clauses are due to three conflicting constraints: a modified Unique Checking Constraint based on that in Wexler (1998), a conceptual constraint requiring both T and C to appear in every full clause, and a constraint which tells children to use phonological closeness to decide which goal to move when two goals are equally close to a probe. Children cannot avoid violation of at least one constraint, so they are required to violate as few as possible. This results in different possible derivations, each one of which produces results which are seen in child speech.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Norris, Rebecca L. (Rebecca Lynn), 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Pesetsky.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/28344
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/28344

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28344