The role of Function Words to build syntactic knowledge in French-speaking children

The question of how children learn Function Words (FWs) is still a matter of debate among child language researchers. Are early multiword utterances based on lexically specific patterns or rather abstract grammatical relations? In this corpus study, we analyzed FWs having a highly predictable distribution in relation to Mean Length Utterance (MLU) an index of syntactic complexity in a large naturalistic sample of 315 monolingual French children aged 2 to 4 year-old. The data was annotated with a Part Of Speech Tagger (POS-T), belonging to computational tools from CHILDES. While eighteen FWs strongly correlated with MLU expressed either in word or in morpheme, stepwise regression analyses showed that subject pronouns predicted MLU. Factor analysis yielded a bifactor hierarchical model: The first factor loaded sixteen FWs among which eight had a strong developmental weight (third person singular verbs, subject pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, modals, demonstrative pronouns and plural markers), whereas the second factor loaded complex FWs (possessive verbs and object pronouns). These findings challenge the lexicalist account and support the view that children learn grammatical forms as a complex system based on early instead of late structure building. Children may acquire FWs as combining words and build syntactic knowledge as a complex abstract system which is not innate but learned from multiple word input sentences context. Notably, FWs were found to predict syntactic development and sentence complexity. These results open up new perspectives for clinical assessment and intervention.

Some considerations on the syntax of expletive subjects in Old Venetan and the emergence of subject clitics

Old Venetan varieties display different forms of third person subject pronouns. In particular, the reduced monosyllabic and asyllabic forms are stronglyrelated to the expletive subject function. Even if the reduced forms do not have the same distribution of subject clitics in Modern Venetan, it can be argued that these forms have become clitics before the other pronouns. The article takes into consideration the syntax of expletive subjects in Old Venetan in relation to the rise of subject clitics in these varieties.

On the impact of clause order on pronoun resolution: evidence from Spanish

In research on intra-sentential pronominal anaphora resolution in null subject languages, it has been argued that null pronouns tend to be biased towards subject antecedents, whereas overt pronouns tend to prefer object antecedents, as predicted by Carminati’s ‘Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis’. However, these studies have mainly focused on only one of the two possible clause orders (main-subordinate or subordinate-main), which have not been overtly contrasted. This paper investigates the effects of clause order on the interpretation of third-person subject pronouns in globally ambiguous intra-sentential contexts by 49 native speakers of Spanish. The results of an acceptability judgment task explicitly comparing both clause orders indicate that relative clause order is a key factor affecting the interpretation of pronouns: while a preference of overt pronouns for object antecedents holds across clause orders, null pronouns show a bias towards subject antecedents only in subordinate-main sequences. These findings refine the Position of the Antecedent Hypothesis predictions by restricting them to subordinate-main complex sentences.

Resolução anafórica em português europeu L2: efeitos de animacidade e a posição do antecedente

This study investigates the interpretation of subject pronouns in L2 EP by Italian native speakers, to examine the following questions: In overt subject resolution, do L1 Italian - L2 European Portuguese learners behave like L1 EP speakers regarding antecedent animacy (a property at the syntax-semantics interface) at L2 developmental stages and at the near-native level?; When the antecedent in object position is animate, do L1 Italian - L2 EP learners exhibit permanent optionality in the interpretation of overt subject pronouns but not of null subjects, as claimed by Sorace (2016), a.o.? Participants were 15 adult EP native speakers, 10 intermediate, 10 advanced and 10 near-native Italian adult learners of L2 EP. They were administered two multiple-choice tasks (speeded and untimed) with a 2x2 design crossing the following variables: animacy of the matrix object (animate vs. inanimate) and type of embedded pronominal subject (overt vs. null). Results indicate that L2 learners show problems only in the areas where the L1 and the L2 differ (Madeira, Fiéis & Teixeira, this volume), namely: the resolution of overt subjects in the presence of [-animate] object antecedent and the resolution of null subjects. Learners’ performance in these areas remains unstable even at the near-native level. These findings challenge the ideas that internal interfaces (syntax/semantics) are not persistently problematic and that null subjects are unproblematic in L2 anaphora resolution (cf. Sorace, 2011, 2016). They moreover point to the importance of L1 influence in L2 anaphora resolution, a factor generally played down in previous studies (e.g., Sorace, 2016).

Microvariação na resolução de sujeitos pronominais: português europeu vs. italiano

The present study investigates the resolution of null and overt subject pronouns in intrasentential contexts, considering the role of animacy in antecedent assignment. Participants were 15 native speakers of EP and 14 of Italian. Each language group was administered two multiple choice tasks (speeded and untimed), which had a 2x2 design, crossing the following variables: animacy of the matrix object (animate vs. inanimate) and type of pronominal embedded subject (overt vs. null). Results indicate that there is microvariation in the resolution of overt pronominal subjects in EP and in Italian: the position of the antecedent is the most relevant factor in EP, whereas, in Italian, the animacy of the antecedent is the preponderant factor. Results also show that there is microvariation in the resolution of null subjects (contra previous claims in the literature): the bias for subject antecedents is weaker in Italian than in EP. Possible reasons for the observed microvariation are discussed in detail.

“Un projet de justice et de progrès social”: President Macron’s 2020 new year message to the nation. A linguistic viewpoint

President Macron’s New Year message on 31 December 2019 was given against a background of social unrest due to his proposed Pension reforms. He defended his policy reiterating the phrase “un projet de justice et de progress social”, but passing responsibility for resolving the crisis to his Prime Minister. The general analytical framework is that of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Macron uses first person singular (je) and plural (nous) subject pronouns to more or less the same extent but the singular form is used mainly with mental processes and the plural with material processes. There are in addition a large number of first person pronoun references other than those that function as grammatical subject: Macron manipulates the ambiguity of the plural pronoun to associate the general public with regard to responsibility for the government’s actions. Material processes are encoded more frequently as non-finite or as nominalizations where specification of the agents is not required, than as finite verbs. Obligation is attributed to the plural nous rather than the singular je. Thus Macron defends his policies while avoiding accepting personal responsibility for them.

Negation and Pronoun Position as a way of investigating verb movement and the emergence of do support during Early Modern English

This paper presents an analysis of the rise of do support and the gradual loss of verb movement during the period of Early Modern English. The analysis focuses on studying the structures in which do support was first used as an alternative to verb raising to I. It takes into consideration the analysis of the relationship between the position of the negation marker not in negative interrogative structures and the position of the subject and the object pronouns in these structures. The analysed structures are negative interrogatives taken from Shakespeare’s works in the period of Early Modern English. The results of the data analysis show that in most cases, there is do support when the subject pronouns are above negation, while there is no do support when object pronouns appear above negation. This suggests that do was first inserted here to avoid object raising with the verb to I or to C to avoid putting object and subject pronouns in subsequent positions.

Verb Second in Old Venetian

This study aims to add to a rich scholarship on the presence of a verb second constraint in old (Italo-)Romance that has been argued to cause V-to-C raising of both the finite verb and one or more constituents, provided we understand this constraint to be lax in these varieties (cf. Ledgeway 2007, 2008). In particular, it analyses a late 14th century old Venetian text, corroborating the existence of this constraint within the variety. Within this study, it will be shown that the syntax of 14th century Venetian is one in which we find the gradual loss of the V2 constraint. This will be shown through a range of phenomena present within the text, such as a loss of Informational Focus fronting, the weakening of subject pronouns, and the loss of scrambling to vP. All in all, this study aims to shed light on the syntax of 14th century Venetian specifically, adding to a growing scholarship on what the incipient loss of the V2 constraint looks like within respective old Romance varieties.

Microvariation in the division of labor between null- and overt-subject pronouns: the case of Italian and Spanish

In Italian, null pronouns are typically interpreted toward antecedents in a prominent syntactic position, whereas overt pronouns prefer antecedents in lower positions. Interpretation preferences in Spanish are less clear. While comprehension and production have never been systematically compared in Italian and Spanish, here we look at the preferences for overt- and null-subject pronouns in the two languages using the same production and comprehension materials. Using an offline comprehension task with a group of Spanish and Italian speakers, we tested sentences where the type of pronoun (null vs. explicit) and position of the pronoun (anaphoric vs. cataphoric) are manipulated, to determine how context affects speakers’ interpretations in the two languages. With two production tasks, we measured referential choice in controlled discourse contexts, linking the production patterns to the differences observed in comprehension. Our results indicate microvariation in the two null-subject languages, with Spanish following the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis but to a lesser degree than Italian. More specifically, in Spanish, the weaker object bias for overt pronouns parallels with a higher use of overt pronouns (and with fewer null pronouns) in contexts of topic maintenance.

ACQUIRING L2 PRONOUN INTERPRETATION BIASES

Learners of a nonnull subject language (e.g., English) whose first language (L1) is a null subject language (e.g., Spanish) can show some optionality in the interpretation of overt subject pronouns in the second language (L2). By exposing L2 learners to nativelike interpretations of pronouns in discourse, we aim at understanding how exposure can promote implicit learning of pronoun comprehension biases in a L2. A sentence comprehension task was used with intermediate-proficiency English L2 speakers (L1 Spanish) that included a pretest, an exposure phase using the priming technique, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest administered 6–10 days later. English learners showed a significant increase in nativelike pronoun interpretations both in the immediate posttest and in the delayed posttest, in comparison to the pretest. The results show that exposure through priming can be effective in changing L2 participants’ interpretations and that effects of exposure are persistent and may aid in the successful acquisition of pronoun resolution biases.